MORE than 3 000 civil servants have fraudulently received the R350 Covid-19 relief grant money for more than a year.
Speaking to the SABC, Sassa’s chief executive officer Busisiwe Memela-Khambula said they had the names of those who had defrauded the agency.
“Those who don’t have a right when they apply for a grant, it doesn’t mean that everyone is unemployed that is the reason we demand all those people should come and give a proof of employment and explain what it is they are doing so that it can attract their income. “Some of them have a right to the grant because of their income threshold and to claim the grant are reported to their departments so that there can be disciplinary action against them,” she said.
She said those who had defrauded the agency would have the money collected through their departments.
“The process has not been completed because we have to run through all of them,” she said.
Memela-Khambula said they had now put that in terms of why it was not done before it was because of the processes that they had prior to Covid-19 grant. She said they didn’t validate those databases and now the system in place to catch the fraudsters.
“At the time of our assessment, these people had been fraudulently receiving grants for over a year. We will be collecting back the money that they were not supposed to receive. We will lay criminal charges against people who fraudulently received the R350 grant because of the regulations that were put in place with regards to Covid-19.”
She said at the moment, they couldn’t lay charges on people for getting other ordinary grants.
Memela-Khambula said they are going to request Parliament to put in place a policy that would enable them to lay criminal charges against those who had defrauded the state through other social grants. This would ensure that money went to the right beneficiaries.
