The Hawks have dismantled one of the biggest disability grant fraud and corruption syndicates to hit the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) after the arrest of officials and undeserving beneficiaries in Limpopo.
Sassa and Hawks officials who can’t be named as they are not authorised to speak to the media, have laid bare how the agency was scammed disability grants by officials colluding with beneficiaries between 2018 and 2019 in Khobo village outside Tzaneen.
A suspended senior Sassa official, who was entrusted with payment approvals of the beneficiaries at Nkowankowa offices, colluded with his girlfriend to recruit undeserving beneficiaries
“A suspended senior Sassa official, who was entrusted with payment approvals of the beneficiaries at Nkowankowa offices, colluded with his girlfriend to recruit undeserving beneficiaries. The girlfriend is running a drop-in centre and has recruited many women who worked there as part of the expanded Public Works programme,” the Sassa official told Sowetan.
Official identity documents of the bogus beneficiaries would be collected allegedly by the girlfriend and handed over to the official as part of the scam.
“These people would be registered in the system without having any file or a letter from a medical doctor recommending that they qualify for a disability grant. We believe the agency has lost close to a million rand in this fraud not the R300,000 that people are talking about,” said the official.
According to the Hawks, all the suspects have been recruited by an intermediary.
“The grant would run for six months and the intermediary would proceed to recruit others and also bring back others into the system,” the official.
“Sassa beneficiaries are paid R3,500 in the first month and R1,500 thereafter. So, officials and the intermediary will take all the R3,500 and share it among themselves, while the beneficiaries will then get their R1,500 for six months until they are removed from the system, but some are later reinstated. New ones are also brought into the system.”
Hawks spokesperson Captain Matimba Maluleke said 20 people who were arrested on Monday and Tuesday last week in connection with Sassa disability grant scam had already appeared in the Tzaneen magistrate’s court.
“Three Nkowankowa Sassa officials – Stanley Banda, 59, Evely Mhlari, 51 and Cecil Nkuna, 46, and an intermediary, Angelinah Morongoa Letswalo, 44, were each granted R5,000 bail. The other 16 ineligible Sassa beneficiaries were granted R2,000 bail each,” Maluleke said.
Their case of fraud and corruption was postponed to March 24.
Maluleke said it is alleged that between the period of 2018 and 2019, the agency officials colluded with an intermediary to recruit ineligible people in Tzaneen area to register for disability grant at a fee and as a result the state suffered a loss of over R300,000.
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