More than 1,500 directors of companies doing business with the state received grants during the pandemic, Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke said on Wednesday, stressing that her office had flagged the 1,513 beneficiaries for investigation.The South African Social Security Agency said all the flagged beneficiaries are being investigated and planning is under way for an appropriate debt recovery process.
The ongoing special audit by the Auditor-General looks into how the R500-billion for the health response to Covid-19 and relief of social and economic distress was spent. Maluleke said her office was sharing information with the fusion centre set up by the government to further investigate suspected Covid-19 malpractice and recoup public funds where possible. A third report focusing on local government will be released in mid-2021.
She said that Sassa’s outdated, limited databases and inadequate verification controls had resulted in people who were not in distress receiving the Social Relief of Distress Grant, also known as the R350 grant, while those who were in distress were sometimes unfairly rejected. Auditors had picked up beneficiaries of agriculture relief that were appearing on multiple government databases and these had been flagged for investigation.
Maluleke said a multidisciplinary team of financial, forensic and IT auditors, as well as health experts, were dispatched to audit the personal protective equipment procurement process. By the end of September, she said, the government had spent R4.6-billion on PPE. “Through the National Treasury instruction notes, it was made clear that the standing requirement to favour local producers must be applied. The auditors did not see this requirement applied consistently in all the PPE procurement processes.
“Some suppliers delivered PPE that did not meet the required specifications or was not what they had been contracted to deliver, or they under-delivered or delivered late. Despite this, the suppliers were still paid by most of the departments.” “A large proportion of the schools that received water tanks did not need them and some schools that received water tanks were not on the original project list. In addition, the payments made for some of the water tanker services were questionable because the supporting documentation was inadequate, calculation errors were made and payments were made for water supplies to schools and other sites that were not part of this programme.
if this is real they must be fired ,named,shamed and pay R10000 FINE FOR EVERY R100 STOLEN FROM US POOR PEOPLE.Have these people no shame.We the voters will not take this longer.We must mobilize against all this .
Hayi bo,bagxume ejele,stinking racketeering, money laundering,thetf,fraud, corruption,murder etc are the charges. NPA wake up.
😂R350? Company directors?
Ie the usual bunch of crooks stealing again. Some things don't, and never will, change