The Department of Social Development has saved about R400 million annually over the past two years, largely because of a data warehousing project completed in 2004 in collaboration with the State IT Agency.
This is according to the department`s CIO, Julius Segole, speaking yesterday at an IT in Government conference in Sandton, Johannesburg.
The savings have cut significantly into the roughly R2 billion he says the department loses each year due to fraudulent benefit claims such as disability, pension and "duplicate" claims.
Following an interrogation of data sitting in the systems relating to grant payments, the department realised "the need for data warehousing and business intelligence".
Segole said the warehousing and data mining initiative allowed the department to associate and cluster data, and conduct outer data analysis - picking up anomalies and identifying illegal grant claims.
The technological challenges the department faced included lack of data integrity, existing legacy systems, no access to other systems for verification of supporting data, inadequate reporting and analysis, and systems security.
'Staggering discovery`
The data interrogation, warehousing and cleansing measures were deployed in tandem with other anti-fraud measures, such as a fraud hotline and investigations with the assistance of the special investigations unit, Segole explained.
The interrogation of data conducted a couple of years ago revealed some interesting findings, he noted.
"We made the staggering discovery that there were 48 606 invalid court order numbers for foster care grants, as well as a notable 3 000 invalid old age grants.
"The information also helped in gathering evidence to prosecute fraudsters."
The system is integrated with Home Affair`s in-development Hanis project and the government payroll system. There are plans to collaborate with the receiver of revenue, labour, health and transport departments in future.
The Department of Social Development`s budget is R57 billion for the 2006-2007 financial year, and has grown steadily over the years from about R19 billion in 2000-2001.
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