The Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) has joined other government agencies and departments in creating a hotline to deal with corruption and fraud.
Other anti-corruption hotlines established so far include the National Anti-Corruption Hotline and the Department of Trade and Industry's fraud hotline.
GEPF CEO Phenias Tjie says the hotline will give employees and the public a mechanism to report any unethical business practices or unethical conduct.
"The recent release of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners has highlighted the global trend towards corruption being rated the number one modus operandi experienced by organisations, including the GEPF,” says Tjie.
During April and September this year, 35 cases of fraud, valued at R4.6 million, were reported and registered with the South African Police Services by the GEPF. Most recently, two suspects were arrested in KwaZulu-Natal after 25 life certificates, to the value of R1.1 million, were activated without authorisation and proceeds paid into a fraudulent bank account.
The life certificate was introduced in 1995 to enable the GEPF to keep track of deaths among its pensioners. Tjie says that in some cases, deaths were not being reported in time by the next of kin and curators, and pension overpayments were difficult to recover.
Improving systems
The GEPF has more than 1.1 million active members and over 300 000 pensioners, excluding members of other funds administered by the GEPF as an agent.
In 2007, the GEPF began drafting a fraud prevention strategy, which included plans for the implementation of a fraud hotline. A fraud register was also developed as part of the pension fund's risk management strategy.
The pension fund says it has concluded several ICT outsourcing tender processes and appointed three service providers to supply an ICT infrastructure, network services and a strategy, including risk architecture and application development services.
“We will continue to assess our ICT capability and maturity to improve performance and expand our services portfolio to meet the growing technology demands. A performance audit of key ICT projects will be undertaken and a governance model developed to direct, coordinate and oversee all ICT services,” says the GEPF.
Government hotlines
Other government departments are also turning to call centres in an effort to relieve payment backlogs.
Following commitments made by president Jacob Zuma earlier this year to improve government's financial practices, all departments are considering establishing hotlines to fast-track payments.
In September, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) announced it was creating a national hotline for SMEs to help with the process of outstanding government payments.
The DTI is set to spend R5 million per year on the Public Sector SME Payment Assistance Hotline, for a period of five years. The Department of Public Works has also established a dedicated call centre to facilitate interaction with service providers. The department, which has been struggling to make sure SMEs are paid within the prescribed 30 days for several years now, previously stated the call centre will help it clear its payment backlog.
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