A recent study by the Institute of Economic Justice found that most of the fraud in the social grant system involved government officials, contractors, ghost beneficiaries and duplicate payments.
The analysis was conducted in response to growing public concern in recent years. As a result, the government recently introduced stricter surveillance, biometric checks and large-scale verification processes aimed at rooting out fraud.
These measures, however, have been criticised for disproportionately introducing wrongful exclusions and suspensions of grant payments to the poor.
Last week, this publication reported on the story of Sipho Mayo, 68, who discovered that for 14 months an imposter was getting his pension money while he suffered hardship. It took this publication’s inquiries to get the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) to resolve Mayo’s long-standing problem.
Mayo, who lives in Vosloorus in Ekurhuleni, was told that someone he shares a name and ID number with had been getting his grant when he went to apply for it last year. But officials were lethargic in attending to Mayo’s problem or stopping what was an apparent case of fraud.
Instead, for nine months since he applied for the grant, a total of R33,000 was paid into the account of the imposter. Sassa’s spokesperson Andile Tshona’s claim that the agency was not aware of Mayo’s issue is therefore disingenuous.
The agency failed to immediately block the imposter’s card or demand that they both present themselves to Sassa for verification. While the agency says biometric verification was introduced to deal with cases like Mayo’s, his experience until our intervention exposes flaws and potential official sabotage of the new system.
That researchers found that between 2014 and 2025, about 75% of social grant fraud cases reported for investigation by the police involved government employees is even more troubling.
Much of the fraud in the social grant system that is being detected could not have happened without people inside enabling it. Another problem is that the state has for years outsourced key parts of the infrastructure used to administer grants, including payment, which creates another risk area for fraud.
Like Mayo, many Sassa beneficiaries do not have the resources to travel back and forth to resolve problems regarding their identities or applications. The state must prioritise such cases and explore alternative verification methods to remove the burden of travel on the elderly and disabled.
More importantly, officials responsible for processing clear cases of fraud must be held to account.
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