The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) is looking at ways to better secure its social grant system, after a worrying number of fraud and corruption cases were registered with the agency in the past year.
The latest SASSA annual report revealed that more than 7 700 fraud and corruption cases were registered at SASSA in 2012/13 and a number of the agency's offices had to be closed due to the number of officials implicated in fraudulent activities.
The report further states that 2 747 of the total registered cases were finalised, with a monetary value of R59 million. One of these cases involved the arrest of 50 individuals who were found to be in possession of 127 unregistered SASSA cards, three Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) registration machines and R47 000 in cash.
During the year, 10 current SASSA officials, three former officials and 15 agents were arrested and convicted, while 52 SASSA officials were suspended from duty, 25 were dismissed and seven resigned prior to the completion of their disciplinary cases.
According to SASSA CEO Virginia Petersen, the agency has plans in place to biometrically enrol its staff in order to clamp down on corruption and mismanagement of SASSA business and grants. The agency will also put firewalls and end-to-end solutions in place to protect information on the system, she says.
"[SASSA] seeks to achieve a fully automated system through a fully secured, integrated and automated end-to-end system in order to improve the administration of the social assistance programme by 2016. In line with this, the agency has established a baseline of the agency's as-is environment and is developing an ICT vision that supports its strategic objectives," says Petersen. She says a conference will be held in the next month where the agency's management strategy and other issues will be discussed.
Security questions
The security of the SASSA system came under the microscope recently when allegations surfaced that CPS, the company administrating and distributing social grants, is using the SASSA database to market and sell airtime to beneficiaries, thus exploiting the poor. An insider told ITWeb that only a SASSA card number is needed to purchase airtime, leaving the system open to fraudsters to buy large amounts of airtime and then resell it with an increased profit margin.
Parent company Net1 UEPS Technologies responded to the allegations, saying that its airtime solution, called Umoya Manje, is "well thought out, affordable and assists the poorest of the poor", and adheres to all regulatory requirements.
"It is our legal right to offer these services and we would not do so if this were not the case. Our products obviously fulfil a need because, if they did not, the two million people who subscribe to our mobile service would not have done so. Nor would they have subscribed if they felt the products were harmful to them. Net1 is always prepared for a forensic audit if that is required to prove that our products are fully complaint legally and serve the interests of beneficiaries."
CPS's practices were also questioned earlier this year, when public protector Thuli Madonsela confirmed in May that she will conduct a preliminary investigation into allegations that the company has been operating an illegal loan scheme targeting social grant beneficiaries. No update on the investigation is yet available.
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