R81m in fraudulent relief payments saved

THE VETTING of 5 million people who applied for the R350 special Covid-19 grant has so far saved the taxpayers more than R13.6 million in potential wrongful payments.

The amount could have escalated to more than R81.9m had 39 000 applicants not been detected over the next six months.

This emerged yesterday as the Department of Social Development and Sassa officials told MPs that 39 000 people had applied despite not being eligible.

The officials were briefing a virtual meeting of the social development portfolio committee.

Linton Mchunu, acting department director-general, said they received about 5 million applications for the special grant. He added that they have started processing a total of 2.6 million applications that were complete.

“Some have not completed their applications,” Mchunu said.

He also stated that they were processing the applications as they came in. “We communicate with the applicants and are asking for their bank details,” Mchunu said.

He maintained that last week they had vetted the first batch of people through the SA Revenue Service (Sars) who applied during a trial run of the network.

“We had a trial run for 75 000. Up to 39 000 of them were drawing salaries already in April.

“We could have paid people who do not deserve to receive these special grants. We found it interesting that many people who did not qualify had applied,” Sassa chief executive Busisiwe MemelaKhambula said.

She said in addition to 39 000 who did not qualify, a further 36 000 were waiting to be vetted by Sars and that they still had not authorised the taxman to access their tax affairs.

Memela-Khambula said Sars would contact the applicants and ask for their permission to access their tax affairs, as part of the vetting process.

Sars has to date verified 11 000 applications who gave authorisation for vetting.

“We are contacting them so that they can get paid this week,” MemelaKhumbula said.

Memela-Khambula also said they planned to pay out 300 000 continuously every two days after verification of applications.

“We will send it to Sars in batches and as soon as Sars approves it, we will pay,” she said.

She further said qualifying beneficiaries would have their grants paid via bank accounts, e-wallet or Post Bank.

Sassa wants to first make payments weekly and thereafter on any other day when applications are vetted.

Memela-Khambula said they were looking into the long-term measure of using vouchers and that they had received about 50 000 unsolicited bids which would go through the normal procurement process.

Responding to a question, Sassa’s executive manager for grants Dianne Dunkerley said successful beneficiaries would be paid in the month they made an application.

“If there is delay in approving the application, they will be paid as from the month they applied. They will be paid twice in June,” Dunkerly said about those who would not have not been paid at the end of the month.

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced R50 billion to relieve those affected by the pandemic.

The president said a special Covid19 social relief grant of R350 a month for the next six months would be paid to individuals who were unemployed and did not receive social grants or UIF payments.

Ramaphosa also announced an increase to child support grant beneficiaries who would receive an additional R300 in May and from June to October R500, while other grants would be topped up with R250.