19 officials arrested for allegedly defrauding SASSA of grant money

Nineteen Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) officials believed to be part of a syndicate that allegedly defrauded the South African Social Security Agency of millions of rands have been arrested.

Lorraine Botha‚ the Democratic Alliance’s chairperson of the Standing Committee on Community Development in the Western Cape Provincial Legislature‚ said she would write a letter to the MEC of social development‚ Albert Fritz‚ to inquire whether his department is conducting any investigations on SASSA officials in the province.

Botha said she would also like to find out how many officials from the province have been found to be part of the syndicate.

“I will also inquire if the department has recovered‚ or has any plans to recover the funds that have been stolen by the syndicate.”

Botha said the SASSA syndicate had been operating in a number of provinces.

She said following a plea and sentencing agreement between the state and syndicate ring leader‚ Nosipho Majola‚ 19 CPS officials were identified to be part of the syndicate.

CPS‚ a subsidiary of NET1 is responsible for disbursing SASSA grants to beneficiaries in the country.

“Of concern is that CPS will continue to disburse the funds until the contract expires at the end of March 2017.”

After that‚ the department of social development will no longer outsource the disbursement of funds but will take on the responsibility themselves.

Botha said in May‚ SASSA revealed that they had lost R800 million to corrupt practices to date‚ and had only been able to recover R1.5 million of those funds.

“We applaud the work done by law enforcement agencies as well as the courts‚ and we urge them to continue with the work they are doing.

“The DA in the Western Cape will continue our efforts to end the corrupt practices in the grant pay-outs until we are confident that it has been put to an end.”