The Social Development Department has failed to bring to book government officials who stolen millions of rands.
|||KwaZulu-Natal legislators on Tuesday expressed anger and dismay at the failure of the Social Development Department to recover millions of rand and to bring to book government officials and individuals who defrauded a programme meant to help the poor.
Members of the standing committee on public accounts were concerned that the department had not recovered more than R3.7 million from people who had defrauded the sustainable livelihood programme.
The programme, run by the department, pumped millions of rand into poverty alleviation projects in KZN. However, some of the money was instead used by people running community organisations to build homes for themselves instead of assisting the poor.
In total, 178 people had been assisted by department officials to set up fictitious organisations to steal the money.
The department had recovered R2.1m, while 114 organisations and individuals had signed acknowledgments of debt and committed themselves to paying back R2.6m. A further sum of R1.1m was also not recovered.
Committee members were unimpressed with the progress made to recover the money and to prosecute the perpetrators, given that some of the fraud dated back to 1996. Police probing the matter said some of the cases had been thrown out by prosecutors who said there was insufficient evidence to prosecute, while other suspects had died.
It emerged that some officials allegedly involved in the scam had moved to other departments.
ACDP MPL Jo-Ann Downs said she was disappointed that no action had been taken since the fraud had been detected in 2002.
“We suspect that this fraud was committed with top people involved. We have asked for names (of guilty parties), but no names have been given.”
The IFP was also concerned about the lack of progress in apprehending the suspects
“The IFP does not understand how those who have been implicated could move to other government departments with impunity,” said IFP MPL Roman Liptak.
There were suggestions for the government to set up a list of corrupt officials which should be circulated to all state institutions.
Social Development Department head Bheki Nkosi said he understood the MPLs’ anger, but the fraud had taken place before the Public Finance Management Act had come into force. Nkosi conceded that the department was lagging behind in taking disciplinary action. - The Mercury