WE HAD TO GO PUBLIC

Two first-year students have exposed how a flaw in the social grants system allowed fraudsters to steal millions

- SIPHOKAZI ZAMA

IT'S a noble idea: a monthly grant established during the pandemic to help the poorest of the poor put bread on the table and extended beyond Covid in a bid to ease the desperation of poverty.

But in what has become an all-too-familiar scenario in South Africa, the R370 social relief of distress grant appears to have fallen prey to corruption.

Tens of millions of rands have allegedly been siphoned from state coffers into the pockets of fraudsters who've been manipulating the system. But what makes this case unusual is the fact the revelations weren't made public by crack police investigators or forensic auditors.

The people at the heart of the exposé are a couple of kids - first year University of Stellenbosch computer science students Joel Cedras (19) and Veer Gosai (18).

And the teens have now been thrust from the anonymity of the laboratory into the glare of the spotlight after their discovery. They were even summoned to discuss their findings in parliament.

It all began last month when Joel mentioned to Veer that he'd applied for the grant in February but when he tried to register he was informed he was already a recipient even though he'd never received a single payment.

Veer told Joel the same thing had happened to a friend of his. "And we started wondering, 'What are the odds of me having a grant application too?" Veer says.

The pair entered Veer's identity number on the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) website - and lo and behold, he was listed as a recipient too despite not having applied. Like Joel, he'd never received payments.

This got the pair questioning how many people who hadn't applied for grants were listed as recipients. They conducted a quick survey of 60 friends and fellow students and of the 60, 58 were listed as recipients - although only two of them had applied for the grant.