Scorpions probe grants fraud by metro workers

By Max Matavire Metro Editor

SIXTY-ONE employees of the Nelson Mandela metro are under investigation by the Scorpions for allegedly drawing social grants to which they are not entitled.

The metro is verifying a list given to it by the Directorate of Special Operations (the Scorpions) of about 60 of its employees allegedly receiving the grants.

Municipal manager Mzimasi Mangcotywa confirmed yesterday that the metro had been given names by law enforcement agents to verify if they genuinely qualified for the grant.

Mangcotywa said the metro had identified people, but declined to release names to The Herald. He also could not say how many metro employees had been confirmed to be illegally receiving the grant or what kinds of positions they held in the municipality.

However, sources said most of them were earning well above the R800 threshold under which they would qualify for a social grant.

“It is not our investigation. We were only asked to look at the list and verify if there were municipal employees involved,” Mangcotywa said.

“We did confirm certain names (but) . . . we cannot release the names as this will jeopardise the investigation.”

Mangcotywa said the Scorpions had “stumbled on a number of suspects” when they were analysing the abuse of social grants provincially and at local government level.

“They were interested in us helping them identify those employed by council. We have done so,” said Mangcotywa, again emphasising that the investigation had not been launched against the municipality itself.

The matter was debated at a mayoral retreat at Cape St Francis last month.

According to a copy of the minutes of the retreat in The Herald’s possession, Mangcotywa told the meeting that the Scorpions had given him a list of 61 municipal employees who were allegedly receiving social grants.

The minutes say the Scorpions wanted confirmation of the employees’ status in the municipality with a view to prosecuting them. Deputy mayor Bicks Ndoni asked that the matter be dealt with speedily to “curb indecisiveness” in the metro.

Speaking at a media conference in Pretoria last week, Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya said the Eastern Cape was the most corrupt province when it came to the abuse of social grants.

He singled out Mthatha and East London as the “capitals of social grants fraud”.

His department estimates that it loses R1,5-billion a year to social grant fraud. An amnesty period, in which illegal grant recipients have been invited to come forward and give up their payments without risk of prosecution, ends on March 31.

The Scorpions’ allegations also come against the background of a damning Auditor-General’s report on corruption in housing delivery which indicated that more than 1 000 metro employees could be receiving State housing subsidies for which they do not qualify.

On Monday, the Kouga municipality, west of the metro, suspended its municipal manager and six senior officials after council minutes were allegedly altered to provide the officials bonuses that had not been approved.

At the metro’s three-day retreat at Cape St Francis, councillors were warned not to leak information to the media. According to the minutes, safety and security committee chairman Mahlubi Biyana suggested that municipal employees “liaising directly” with the media needed “to be addressed disciplinarily”.

Metro communications chief Roland Williams was instructed at the retreat not to issue media statements without first “consulting politicians”, the minutes said.