Issued by: Ministry for Welfare and Population Development
4 MARCH 1998
JOINT STATEMENT BY WELFARE AND POPULATION DEVELOPMENT MINISTER GERALDINE FRASER-MOLEKETI AND EASTERN CAPE WELFARE MEC NOMSA JAJULA ON THE DELAY INT HE PAYMENT OF BENEFICIARIES DUE TO A COMPUTER ERROR
We are pleased to report that the delay this week in the payment of 2 166 social security beneficiaries in the Eastern Cape due to an unexpected human error by computer programmers, has now been resolved. Today (Wednesday) a list of beneficiaries to be paid out, was sent to the province for payments to resume.
We wish to thank beneficiaries for their patience and understanding, also wish to correct any rumours suggesting that the error meant beneficiaries in the province may not be paid this month.
The provincial department of Welfare became aware of the problem on Monday, 2 March 1998, and immediately informed the programmers in Pretoria and appropriate steps were taken.
Among beneficiaries affected were those receiving a combination of old age pension and another grant such as foster care or State Maintenance Grant.
In the upcoming financial year the Department will have a budget specifically for clean-up and new system development. We will use such funds also for the training of staff and beefing-up systems management at both national and provincial levels.
The Department of Welfare's SOCPEN (social pensions) computer system, which processes the payment of all social security grants nationally, is managed by 1-Data, a private computer service consulting company. The system produces reports to indicate problems encountered during processing of payments, immediately distributed to provincial system administrators for final check.
Since the completion of the amalgamation of all 14 systems last year, the Department has seen a decline in the number of such human errors. We are currently working hard to reduce such errors to a minimum. There was a slight increase resulting from the clean-up exercise where fraudulent and expired beneficiary cases were eliminated from the system. We want to ensure that only people who qualify, benefit.
We wish to emphasise that there will not be any stoppage in the payment of social security grants in the Eastern Cape, not in March, and not in April.
ISSUED: Ms Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, MP Minister for Welfare and Population Development
Ms Nomsa Jajula, MPL MEC For Welfare in the Eastern Cape
Enquiries: Brian Sokutu, Press Secretary Office of the Minister for Welfare and Population Development Cell: 082-807-5397