Deputy Speaker, the South African Social Security Agency, Sassa, is an agency responsible for the administration of the Social Service Grant to the most poverty-stricken people in South Africa. As a result, it is not an organisation that can afford to be mismanaged. There are some serious irregularities that need to be explained.
Sassa appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Scopa, on 14 June 2011. It was very clear that Sassa lacked the capacity to maintain the R25 million grant file. The Auditor-General has found that the agency staff have effected payment without the necessary supporting documentation and could not account for R10 billion.
The Auditor-General has further identified the following: Sassa still struggles to manage the performance of employees. It lacks monitoring control over the reporting process and the financial knowledge to implement the new financial instrument. There are delays in institutional policy approval and implementation, as well as in the system preparation. Sassa is not implementing control to mitigate the risk. There are delays in reconciling accounts on time.
The employee cost of Sassa has increased from R1,3 billion in 2009 to R1,5 billion in the year under review. This includes R11,8 million for the remuneration of the key management and executive. This amount has increased by 29,6% in nominal terms from R9,1 million in 2009. Irrespective of huge salaries of the officials, the financial managers did not submit the financial statement to the Auditor-General as required. Fraud by the staff has become rife and the chief financial officer is suspended with full salary as I speak.
An amount of R2 billion is being lost on irregular grant payments every year. Why is the management of the security data and the elimination of fraud not prioritised? The major budget of Sassa does not benefit the poor and the vulnerable of South Africa. Poverty remains our deep and daunting challenge. If we fail to address poverty, we will wreck democracy. The DA will not support this Budget. [Time expired.] [Applause.]