The Auditor-General (AG) informed the parliamentary social development portfolio committee that in the 2025/26 financial year, the SASSA agency paid over 1.3 billion rand to social benefit recipients who were not entitled to them.
The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), which is responsible for distributing social grants, paid over 1.3 billion rand between April 2025 and March 2026 to individuals who were not eligible for these benefits.
The Office of the Auditor-General notified Parliament that payments were made to deceased beneficiaries, public servants earning above the established threshold for receiving benefits, and beneficiaries with invalid identification documents.
Puleng Molapo, an AG representative, noted: 'We see payments after death, which means the beneficiary has passed away. We have seen payments with invalid identification documents. We have seen people registered in Persal (the list of public servants and payroll directory) who are already receiving a government salary but are also claiming social grants.'
He added that cases of payments to members of the Government Employees Pension Fund were observed, and incomplete databases were identified, making it impossible to confirm whether a specific person should receive payments.
Molapo presented the audit results of the department to the social development committee. He emphasized that SASSA largely relied on documents provided by applicants for registration as beneficiaries, and due to the lack of integration between government systems, SASSA faced difficulties verifying certain specific information.
According to Molapo, the agency needs to invest in ICT systems to ensure integration, which would allow for the detection of some identified problems or specific individuals. He stated that full integration is necessary, acknowledging that this may not be a short-term plan but requires developing strategies to solve this problem to avoid the situation recurring year after year.
He also mentioned that SASSA uses the Department of Home Affairs database, but data loading is done manually every month, leading to system delays.
The presentation given to the committee showed that in the 2024/25 financial year, the agency paid over 2.3 billion rand to ineligible beneficiaries, which decreased by approximately 1 billion rand to 1.33 billion rand in the financial year under review. The breakdown shows that 211 million rand was paid to deceased persons, significantly higher than 18.6 million rand in the previous financial year. Furthermore, it was found that 266.8 million rand was paid to public servants (260.7 million rand in 2024/25), 18.9 million rand to persons with invalid identification documents (compared to 16.4 million rand in 2024/25), and 235.1 million rand to GEPF members, which is lower than 246.5 million rand in the previous financial year.
The largest decrease occurred in the amount of payments related to the incomplete database. Last year, SASSA paid 1.776 billion rand in this regard, whereas this year the amount was 604.3 million rand.
Molapo noted that, according to their analysis, every lost million through such 'leakages' could provide food for 108 vulnerable families amounting to 5500 rand monthly.
These leakages also led to the organization receiving a qualified audit opinion from the AG. Molapo stated: 'We have long reported widespread mismanagement or leakage of public funds without consequences, and our audit recommendations are not receiving the necessary attention.'
Committee Chairperson Bridget Masango expressed concern over the qualified audit opinion, especially considering the department's responsibility for administering social protection programs and safeguarding public resources.
Masango stated: 'A qualified audit opinion is a result that the committee cannot accept as normal. We are concerned that weaknesses in the system continue to put public funds at risk of waste, especially where payments are made to people who no longer qualify for social grants.'
She stressed that this requires urgent intervention to strengthen the integrity of the social grant system.
Masango concluded that 'every rand lost due to system weaknesses is a rand that could have been directed towards supporting vulnerable residents of South Africa. The department and SASSA must strengthen their verification and control systems to ensure that public funds reach the people they are intended for.'