Government systems are notorious for being inefficient and compromised, so SA stood no chance when — in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic — those same systems needed to kick in and provide much-needed relief.
A number of schemes were implemented as part of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s R500bn social and economic relief package, which was meant to see citizens and businesses through the lockdown. But there were incidents of fraud and mismanagement, which were picked up by the auditor-general’s office, mandated with auditing how the funds were used.
Auditor-general Kimi Makwetu and his team looked into R230bn of the R500bn, most of which went to the Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (Ters) and the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) R350 temporary social grant. These were the two biggest of the schemes set up by the government to provide relief to the unemployed and workers who faced the brunt of the economic lockdown.
Makwetu and his team made some general observations in their report released on Wednesday, which indicated that rapid implementation of the initiatives in “already compromised control environments” created risks that most auditees were unable to address.
There were issues around government IT systems not being agile enough to respond to the required changes, pre-existing deficiencies in supply chain processes, poor record-keeping and a pre-existing inability to co-ordinate and oversee efforts involving multiple departments, agencies and spheres of government.
Makwetu put it bluntly: “A compromised internal control environment does not only create an opportunity for people in the external environment to [chance their luck], it also creates a chance for those internally who process those transactions to fiddle around because they know the scrutiny that comes with the normal systems of internal control is not in place.”
And this is exactly what happened. But what makes it infuriating is that social partners offered external help, free, to make sure this didn’t happen, and they were snubbed. Business for SA, which has been working with government and other Nedlac partners on Ters, funded by the Unemployment Insurance Fund, confirmed this after the release of the damning auditor-general’s report.
It said while it acknowledged that the Ters system was a new and far broader benefit than what the UIF had previously had to contend with, it was “disappointed that the institution appeared reluctant to accept pro bono private sector assistance offered in an effort to enhance efficiencies”. This raises the question — why didn’t the UIF want anyone looking more closely at its systems?
The answer seems to be in the auditing report, which highlighted issues of overpayments, underpayments, the invalid rejection of beneficiaries, fraud and double-dipping. Payments were made to people below the legal age of employment, others who were deceased, people receiving social grants or student funds from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, and others working for government who don’t even contribute to the UIF.
The Ters benefit does not come from government money but workers’ money, contributions made every month by the country’s workforce, and yet those who were not entitled to it believed they should have a claim.
The Sassa temporary relief grant was found to have similar issues. The auditor-general found that there were beneficiaries who were not eligible to receive the relief; again this included government employees as well as those receiving other sources of income or other social grants, a government pension, UIF payments or a National Student Financial Aid Scheme bursary.
There are always chancers out there, but when public servants who neither had to face a salary cut nor impending retrenchments during the now more than five-month lockdown try to steal from the people they are meant to be serving, it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. But what did we expect when those at the top seem to have no issue with stealing from citizens, some the most vulnerable in our society?
A silver lining in all this, however — in relation to the Ters benefit at least — was that those who were tasked with running the project were suspended pending an investigation by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU). Employment & labour minister Thulas Nxesi announced shortly after the release of the auditor-general report that he had suspended UIF commissioner Teboho Maruping, because it all had happened on his watch. Senior management at the UIF has also been suspended.
It is just unfortunate that we have not seen the same accountability at Sassa. Social development minister Lindiwe Zulu reportedly told parliament she had no intention of asking the Sassa CEO to step aside. She pointed out that the agency had been attacked for delaying payments in the beginning, but that this was done to fix the system to avoid what the auditor-general had found. But clearly it did not help, and someone needs to be held to account.
There should be consequences across the board, as the failure by these government institutions to implement the relief measures efficiently and honestly has affected South Africans indiscriminately.
• Quintal is political editor
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