Photo: Flickr/GCIS
The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) has warned that the Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant payments will be suspended for accounts suspected of fraudulent activities.
“After the grant has been suspended, the beneficiary is allowed to re-apply,” said Sassa on Tuesday.
“Sassa implemented this activity to ensure that the agency pays social grants to the right people and avoid identity theft.”
Late last year, Minister of Social Development Sisisi Tolashe appeared before the Portfolio Committee on Social Development, where she accounted for the security vulnerabilities in Sassa’s SRD grant system, which potentially put beneficiaries’ personal information at risk.
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At the time, the department appointed the investigative firm Masegare & Associates Incorporated to examine the system, following an investigation by two students from the University of Stellenbosch, Joel Cedras and Veer Gosai.
The two claimed the SRD application system had critical security gaps that could expose sensitive data to potential cyber-attacks.
Tolashe acknowledged the system’s faults and committed to a thorough investigation.
On Friday last week, the #PayTheGrants campaign sounded an alarm on fraudulent activities on Facebook, saying unverified accounts and pages were using the Sassa name to mislead vulnerable citizens.
The fake pages promise to help beneficiaries with updating their phone numbers.
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“Scammers send out fake verification links, claiming they are necessary for grant continuation, which instead captures personal information for illicit use,” said the #PayTheGrants campaign.
It called on Sassa to launch educational campaigns to inform the public about how to identify official communications on Facebook and the dangers of engaging with unverified sources.
The campaign has also urged the government to pursue legal avenues to shut down fraudulent pages on Facebook and prosecute those responsible for the scams.
On Tuesday, Sassa encouraged people to take responsibility to make sure that their identity numbers are not used for fraudulent activities.
“Sassa beneficiaries must ensure that they do not share their identity numbers with strangers to avoid becoming aiding fraudsters.
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“Sassa has well-trained officials who are assigned to deal with Covid-19 SRD grant cases. If the beneficiary or applicant is suspecting fraudulent activity, he or she must not hesitate to contact Sassa.”
When beneficiaries check their status and see that it is marked as “referred”, it means that the Sassa system has flagged potential fraudulent activity.
The beneficiary must contact Sassa immediately to resolve the case.
It further warned beneficiaries against constantly changing their banking details and contact numbers “because those processes delay the payment processes”.
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