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Fraud Zone
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TimesLive
By SIMPIWE PILISO
Sep 19, 2010
Town with highest number of twins busted!
Viedgesville, a small rustic village in the Eastern Cape, holds the South African record for the highest number of sets of twins - about 100 within a 10km radius.
'Phantom twins scam costs the state tens of millions in fraudulent pay-outs'
But that's only if a massive government investigation into fraud and corruption in the child support grant system fails to prove any wrongdoing.
The village, situated between Nelson Mandela's home of Qunu and Mthatha, apparently has between 100 and 125 sets of twins.
But a government agency has launched an investigation into what it believes could be one of the biggest scams yet involving rural villagers.
About four weeks ago, the SA Social Security Agency, which disburses billions in social grants on behalf of the government, launched the first Grant Review Process since the agency was established in 2005.
"We have already made some shocking discoveries ...we are stumbling across fraud almost daily that is costing the government millions," said Tshediso Mahlaku, an official with Sassa.
The state pays out more than R90-billion a year in social grants to about 12-million beneficiaries.
Corruption in the provision of grants is said to cost the state about R1.5-billion a year.
The "phantom twins" scam, which is costing the state tens of millions in fraudulent payouts, has contributed to the government paying out almost R1-billion a year more than it should.
So far, Sassa is reviewing the beneficiaries in the village in phases and will first be reviewing 45 of the payments to the beneficiaries in Viedgesville.
A Sassa official said the number of phantom twins in Viedgesville, which is about 10km in radius, could be as high as 120. Each child is given a R250 child support grant a month.
The government funded agency, which annually spends about R5.6-billion on administration, has unleashed more than 17 highly trained investigators from Sassa's Internal Audit and Compliance and Grant Administration units, along with dozens of Sassa officials, to close the net on rural families and individuals in the Eastern Cape who have pocketed millions after registering "phantom twins".
"This crackdown (which has started in the Eastern Cape) will be extended to other provinces," said Paseka Letsatsi, a spokesperson for Sassa. The investigations, including pension fraud, have cost between R3.5-million and R5-million a month.
Sassa has also roped in the services of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), SA Police Services' Commercial Crime Unit, and Home Affairs.
Eastern Cape Social Development Department spokesman Nomiky Tshangela said Sassa's preliminary report, into the extensive review investigation, singled out Viedgesville as one of the hot spots.
"We are still in the beginning stages of this investigation (the Grants Review Process)," said Tshangela. She added that more than 2 000 alleged false or non-existent children have been identified and that more than 700 grants have been suspended. Many of these investigations are already in court.
Tshangela said the police's Commercial Crime Unit and the Home Affairs Department had also already arrested several Home Affairs officials who registered more than 1500 false children.
Other illegal schemes uncovered by the investigators include: A "rent a child" scam in Mthatha, where Sassa has cracked about 300 cases a week since August 1.
People borrow a child - for a fee - from another community member and present that child as their own during the verification process.
In one incident, a fraudster who had five different birth certificates could not physically present the five children during the verification process. She could only produce one child when asked to back her claim.
Parents who earn decent incomes and work in other provinces or towns leave their children with grandparents so that they can apply for grants to supplement their pensions.
The deaths of deceased children are never reported to the Home Affairs Department and beneficiaries continue to receive child support grants.
Hundreds of people cross the border from Lesotho and Swaziland into South Africa every month to illegally obtain government grants.
The illegal recipients, who are supplied with disability certificates or other documentation to secure government grants, only spend one day per month in SA.
But according to Sassa the phantom twins scam appears to be one of the biggest.
"At this stage it's not easy to estimate (how much the scam is costing the state) since the investigation is still under way," said Letsatsi.
Letsatsi said since August 1, more than 50 cases have been brought before the courts in the Eastern Cape.
"Sassa is also in the process of tracing the fraudulent grants back to the officials who captured and approved them on the Sassa system," she said.
She said investigators were also struggling to find many of the twins for verification, as most parents claimed that their children were visiting relatives in other provinces.
"This is alarming, since they are supposed to be at school," said Letsatsi.
The Sunday Times this week visited Viedgesville, including Qunu and villages around Mthatha, and only found a fraction of the twins registered on the social grant system.
Many of the twins discovered by the newspaper were aged 19 and older, above the age for a child support grant.
Nosamkele Tutshene, an unemployed 31-year old mother of three, said there were not a lot of twins in Viedgesville and she was not surprised that a lot of people were defrauding the system.
"A lot of people are unemployed and are dependent on the child support grant to survive and feed their families. There is no other source of income."