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Meaning of Eastern Cape registration process
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Speeches and Media Releases
 Welfare

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MEDIA STATEMENT
 DEPARTMENT OF WELFARE
 23 NOVEMBER 1999

THE TRUE MEANING AND PURPOSE OF THE EASTERN CAPE RE-REGISTRATION PROCESS.

The re-registration exercise underway in our Province is not about removing people from the system rather to purify our systems to ensure 
that we pay the right people, the right amounts, at the right place and at the right time, writes Mamkeli Ngam, Communications Officer for 
the Welfare Department.

Firstly, we want to respond to an article that appeared in the Mail and Guardian newspaper of 14/11/99 page, 44, headlined "Denying the 
disabled a Voice." This headline is misleading at best and irresponsible journalism at worst.

Over and above, to accompany the article with a picture of a person with a disability is not acceptable whatsoever as it seeks to confuse 
members of civil society about the re-registration exercise underway in our Province.

We have made it abundantly clear through the media that the re-registration campaign excludes all disability grantees. We are therefore 
surprised by the reference to the disabled.

In our view, the article is meant to cast aspersions about the Department of Welfare in particular and the Eastern Cape Government in 
particular.

This kind of journalism demonstrates laziness on the part of the reporter concerned by taking bits and pieces from daily newspapers and 
compiled them into a story in order to sensationalise issues.

The reporter is based in East London, and for that reason we expected him to have consulted us to have a factually correct and balanced 
story that educates and informs the nation about developments in our Province.

Secondly, in the light of the many comments and criticisms around re-registration this presentation seeks to provide an account of the 
Department's initiative to re-register approximately 300 000 social security grant beneficiaries throughout the Province and NOT 500 000 as 
reported by some sections of the print media.

As you are all aware that the re-registration process has attracted considerable media and public attention, the general thrust of which is 
unfavourable and puts the successful implementation of this massive project at risk by alienating communities in general and beneficiaries 
in particular.

Four issues need clarification right from the beginning, namely:
The exercise to re-register Social Security grant beneficiaries in the Eastern Cape should be located within the National Department of 
Welfare's decision - which is a government decision to re-register social grant beneficiaries in all nine Provinces for the purpose of 
enhancing the accuracy, currency, validity, legal compliance as well as the overall integrity of our data base. This exercise excludes 
disability grant beneficiaries. On that note I want to draw your attention to the results of our forensic audit which are just a tip of the 
iceberg on the issue.

This initiative should therefore be seen as a genuine attempt to audit our records regarding social grant beneficiaries. We do not share 
the view that we are crying fraud and corruption to "whittle down the number of beneficiaries," as some critics claim, far from it. We 
undertake to investigate each case individually before any decision is taken about the grant beneficiary concerned be it to suspend or 
cancel it.

The Eastern Cape Provincial Department of Welfare has identified a wide range of inaccuracies in its own database which are explicable in 
terms of irregularities, viz:

* Lack of purity of the database, which was inherited from the previous administrations.

* Irregularities leading to receipt of social grants by persons who do not qualify, some dead. We want to draw the attention of the public 
and everyone else to the following exceptions unearthed in Idutywa :

* 20 duplicate names
* 137 deceased beneficiaries
* 20 too young to draw old age grants
* 400 ghosts.

The monetary value for all these exceptions is over R3 million per annum bearing in mind that this is just the scratching of the surface in 
one district alone. Our overall investigations so far revealed that we lose approximately R76 million a month. That discovery calls for a 
wide and thorough process of re-registration to get things right and eliminate irregularities.

Over and above, this is a critical point for the Department from the perspective of the proper management of the utilisation of public 
funds that are entrusted to us.

There are benefits for both the Department and citizen beneficiaries that should derive from the implementation of this project. Key 
amongst these are the following:

* Payment to the right people, the right amount at the right time and at the right place.
* The inadequacies of the current data base particularly with regard to addressing information details concerning beneficiaries frustrates 
the process of engaging in constant communication with our beneficiaries thus compromising the Department's service delivery commitment.
* The re-registration exercise will also enable us to introduce the new Welfare Payment Information System on a clean slate in the next 
financial year.
* The making of business decisions in respect of the social security function at the strategic levels within the Welfare sector.

* The re-registration exercise is not about removing or denying beneficiaries their grants rather about ensuring clean administration and 
about the auditing of beneficiary records.

The project has the approval and endorsement of the Provincial Executive Council and the Welfare standing committee has been consulted on 
this issue.

The re-registration project is to be piloted in five (5) areas namely ; Humansdorp, Port St Johns/Qumbu, Mount Ayliff, Idutywa and Lady 
Frere. These are areas that we believe have increased levels of irregularities.

However, the process of re-registering is proceeding well in our institutions throughout the Province.

Our regions are busy with the process of short listing candidates who would be employed as contract employees.

The process is proceeding apace with some having finished appointments in their regions. This process has not been an easy one due to the 
large volume of applications that we received. We received thousands of applications for 254 posts. As soon as all regions have finished 
the process, we are to embark on a weeklong training and then the re-registration process will begin full swing in the piloted areas.

The idea behind employing contract employees is to allow other day-to-day services of the Department like the taking in of new applicants 
and the processing thereof to go on as usual without any destabilisation.

The Department has also shared information on the re-registration project with stakeholders like the Welfare standing committee, NGO 
Coalition, Eastern Council of Churches, Legal Resources Centre, HRC, House of Traditional Leaders Disabled People South Africa, Legal 
Resources Centre, etc.

With regards to communications, it is an ongoing programme that involves the pamphlets and posters to our regions, advertisements in print 
and Radio, face to face meetings with Community Based Organisations (CBOs), Radio programmes, etc.

Public hearings.

In the same vein, we want to make it clear that the Department of Welfares understanding of the issue is that they are an attempt by the 
public participation and petitions committee to seek views on a particular issue. The Department is not seeking the views of anyone about 
the concept of re-registration.

The re-registration exercise is a national mandate and was agreed to at a high political level. All the Provinces in this country are 
required to undertake the process and we therefore say, anything contrary to this mandate will not get support from us.

The Department is not applying any brakes to the process and we are well on track with our plans to carry out this task.

In conclusion, we call on all our people, individually and through their structures to make a meaningful contribution to ensure the success 
of this project.

Help Us To Get It Right.

Issued by
Mamkeli Ngam
 Communication Services
 Welfare Department
 Bisho
 23/11/1999

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