War declared on corruption

MBOMBELA – The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) in the province has sent a stringent warning to its officials who are involved in corruption that their days are numbered.

This comes after the agency noticed that incidents of corruption involving its officials, have increased. It’s reported that three were arrested last week in Piet Retief on allegations of corruption as it is alleged they were issuing fraudulent grant-payment cards.

Speaking to Mpumalanga News, the provincial spokesperson for Sassa,
Mr Senzeni Ngubeni, indicated that they were fed up with corrupt officials.

“We can’t tolerate corrupt people because every time we upgrade our system, they devise something new, and it’s totally unacceptable because those criminals from our communities are working together with our officials.

“I believe that there will be more arrests, including our officials.
“It’s very painful because they are taking advantage of innocent members of the community to feed their own greed.

“One of the victims has showed us their methodology and we are confident there will be more arrests,” explained Ngubeni.

This newspaper learnt that in August alone, an estimated 4 000 social grants had been cancelled because some of the people were receiving the money illegally.

Ngubeni said, “Last month we discovered that some of the people were receiving social grants illegally, while others failed to visit our nearest centres to renew theirs.

We have discovered that someone was receiving a grant for a child who had passed away three years ago.

Those incidents happened in rural areas like Nkomazi and people from our neighbouring countries like Swaziland and Maputo are giving us a problem,” he explained.

Ngubeni said they would continue investigations since it was clear that some officials were stealing money from the poor to enrich themselves. “I don’t want to beat about the bush.

Those who find themselves on the wrong side of the law, will face the music. While they are attending court cases, we will also deal with them in disciplinary hearings in the office.

They deserve to be fired because they can’t be trusted with the money of the poor,” he concluded.
Information at the police’s disposal revealed that the officials were allegedly issuing fraudulent grant-payment cards that were not yet activated to a certain woman.

She would then pose as a Sassa official, visit beneficiaries at their homes, pretending to conduct a verification process of beneficiaries.

In the process, she would ask for the Sassa card of the beneficiary and the PIN code as to “reset” the card, after which she would exchange them and give the beneficiary the one that is not activated.

She would also go to the ATMs during pay day, wearing a Sassa name tag and offer assistance to people while exchanging their cards.

The woman, Ms Thembeni Nene (48), was arrested last week Friday in Piet Retief, after trying to swap cards at the ATM.