Deputy Minister; Mama Maria Bongi Ntuli,
CEO of SASSA; Ms Virginia Petersen and all SASSA Senior Managers present,
Ladies and Gentlemen of the media,
Good morning and thank you all for joining us for this media briefing.
The purpose of this briefing is to give you an update on the progress of the re-registration process by the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA). You will recall in February 2012 that I introduced the roll-out of the new biometric-based payment solution for social grants.
It is a year later and we want to give you feedback on progress, especially with regard to our Government’s commitment to strengthen, modernise and to improve the integrity of our social security system, and to eliminate all forms of fraud and corruption.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am pleased that SASSA continues to make steady progress on delivering on its key mandate.
To date, we have successfully re-registered almost 19 million people, out of a target of 21 million. This is made up of both cash and commercial bank beneficiaries in all provinces.
This is an important milestone in our quest to create a clean database of social security beneficiaries.
In fact, some provinces have already re-registered over 97 percent of beneficiaries for all types of grants.
The CEO of SASSA will later provide a more detailed provincial breakdown of all the numbers, including per grant type and give an update on the SASSA audit.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all beneficiaries who heeded the call and responded positively to the process of re-registering their social grants.
I wish to acknowledge that the most compliant of our beneficiaries were older person where 94 percent of them re-registered.
All these major achievements could not have been possible without the help of various community-based organisations and the media reaching out to all our people throughout the country, especially those in rural areas.
With their continued assistance, we were able to further the ANC Government’s mission of working together to improve the lives of our people.
I take this opportunity to thank all those who have contributed and I wish to further urge South Africans from all walks of life to join in our on-going re-registration campaign to register all eligible people for social security grants.
In consultation with the CEO of SASSA, I have taken a decision to give all the beneficiaries who have not able to re-register, an extended period to please do so before the end of April 2013. Please note that re-registration sites will be closed over the Easter weeeked and we will resume on April 2, 2013.
From the beginning of May this year, we will be sending out letters of notification informing non-compliant beneficiaries of our intention to stop their social grants within 90 days of notification.
I remain hopeful that all the beneficiaries who have thus far not re-registered will emulate the exemplary conduct of our senior citizens and come and re-register before the end of April 2013.
We are aware that for many beneficiaries, social grants are the only source of income and that is why we have taken the decision to extend the re-registration.
However, I must stress that while we remain committed to continue to provide this valuable assistance to our people, we equally remain committed to maintain and preserve the integrity of our social security system against possible abuse, fraud and corruption.
This is non-negotiable, and we have adopted a zero-tolerance approach against those who deliberately defraud our system.
On this note, I am pleased to report that 44 thousand social grants were manually lapsed at the request of the beneficiaries. A further 66 thousand grants lapsed due to non-collection.
We shall continue to root out fraud and corruption whenever and wherever it appears to ensure that social grants only go to eligible beneficiaries.
Let me take this opportunity to once again, allay the fears of our people, especially the sick, frail and our senior citizens over the age of 75 years, as well as care dependency grant beneficiaries that we will continue with the scheduled home visits until the end of May 2013.
Members of the media,
Social security is and will remain an integral part of our Government’s strategy to fight the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality.
Today, over 16 million South Africans and their families rely on social grants and we need to protect this programme for those who truly need its benefits.
We remain open to those beneficiaries who knowingly are in receipt of a fraudulent grant to come forward and request cancellation without fear of being prosecuted for fraud and corruption.
That is why it is crucial for us to continue to strengthen systems that will enable us to improve our efficiency and effectiveness to prevent and to detect fraud and corruption.
Our progress to date is a clear indication that the biometric-based payment solution is a step in the right direction.
I thank you.
