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🇿🇦 South Africa /Technology

OPEN SECRETS: Digital Profiteers (Part 3): How combating fraud in SA’s digitalised grants system hurts the poor

From Daily Maverick · () English

Summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Analysis Documents & data Context piece
  • South Africa’s Social Development Department and Sassa plan to review hundreds of thousands of grant beneficiaries, citing fraud prevention and projected savings.
  • The investigation describes how digital verification and alleged unauthorized deductions can burden poor recipients, including a pensioner whose grant was charged for a funeral policy he said he never approved.
  • The article examines whether anti-fraud measures in the grant system are shifting costs and risks onto beneficiaries.

South Africa’s drive to save money by reviewing social-grant recipients is creating new risks for the people the system is meant to support, Open Secrets argues in the final instalment of its three-part series.

On 21 July 2026, newly appointed Social Development Minister Dina Pule said Sassa had flagged more than 420,000 beneficiaries for review during the 2025/26 financial period and claimed savings of R1-billion. For 2026/27, Sassa aims to review up to 350,000 beneficiaries and save R1.5-billion for the government fiscus. Pule said, “The more we save, the more our people are covered with social assistance… reviews also protect the system against fraud, abuse and incorrect payments.”

The article questions how government defines “abuse” and examines the consequences of digital income verification. It points to contracts obtained by Open Secrets that show fees charged by commercial banks and other private entities, as well as risks to grant recipients’ data.

In November 2025, investigators interviewed a 67-year-old pensioner from Makause informal settlement, identified only as “B”. With assistance from #PaytheGrants activist General Moyo, B described how deductions for an African Unity funeral policy began coming from his old-age pension in April 2024, despite his saying he had never agreed to such a policy.

B said people who described themselves as Sassa volunteers visited Makause and collected names, cellphone numbers and identity numbers while offering help with the grant review process. A month after he registered, he discovered the deductions. Open Secrets anonymised him to protect his identity while correspondence with the company continued. The article places his experience within a broader concern that efforts to combat fraud can impose the greatest burden on grant recipients.

The more we save, the more our people are covered with social assistance… reviews also protect the system against fraud, abuse and incorrect payments.

· Dina PuleThe Social Development minister defended beneficiary reviews as a way to generate savings and protect the grant system.
About this summary

Originally published by Daily Maverick. Summarized and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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