Portia Mathenjwa, who used to work for the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa), was found guilty of a huge fraud plan involving disability grants. The Pretoria Specialized Commercial Crimes Court’s decision came out on July 26, 2023. Mathenjwa was found guilty of 108 counts of theft that happened over almost ten years, from 2009 to 2018.
In this fraud, Mathenjwa used her job at Sassa to give her claimed boyfriend, Tshetlhodi Joe Masinga, fake disability grants. She did this by using someone else’s login information without permission, which was written carelessly on the office wall. She also changed Masinga’s medical records at Steve Biko Academic Hospital so that she could falsely get disability benefits.
In 2019, someone made a report about Mathenjwa’s actions and it was then looked into by the Office of the Public Protector. The case was taken over by the Hawks’ Serious Commercial Crime Unit, and she was arrested on March 30, 2023. The court case showed that Mathenjwa had abused her access to Sassa’s systems by using the passwords of another employee to get around security checks and approve the fake grants.
Financial Loss to SASSA
Many millions of rand were lost by SASSA because of this fraud. Mathenjwa and Masinga got about R140,000 in illegal payments. The judge gave Mathenjwa a three-year jail sentence that would be completely suspended for five years if he did not commit any more fraud or theft during that time.
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Because of this case, SASSA has been told to take stricter steps to stop scams like this from happening again. This includes adding biometric authentication to the system to make sure that only people who are allowed to can accept grants. The office is also responsible for telling the National Treasury about any strange or unnecessary spending and taking action to get the money back from Mathenjwa and Masinga.
It is clear from this case that Sassa is still having a hard time keeping its social grant system honest. Fraud and corruption scandals at the agency have shown how important strong internal controls and responsibility are for keeping public funds safe.