Government's move to re-register all social grant beneficiaries in an attempt to eliminate massive fraud and corruption within the system meant that grant recipients would have to re-apply again.

There has been a rise in the number of people making fraudulent applications especially for child support, disability and special pensions.

Last year in the Eastern Cape, 19 government officials were charged with defrauding the department, while charges were compiled against 6000 fraudulent social grant beneficiaries.

Human rights organisations, like the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) in Grahamstown, have threatened to monitor the social development department's re-registration process to ensure that deserving beneficiaries were not denied state social assistance.

LRC director Sarah Sephton said the previous re-registration process which took place between 1996 and 2000 resulted in thousands of grant beneficiaries having their grants cancelled or suspended by the then welfare department in the Eastern Cape. "The LRC fears that this process may result in delays and or unlawful cancellations which may prejudice millions of deserving recipients," Sephton said.

The human rights watchdog has also written to the social development department advising them of the Ngxuza judgement taken in the Grahamstown High Court in 2000 on behalf of 100000 disability grant recipients who had their grants cancelled or suspended.

The court subsequently ruled that the cancellation of the disability grants of the recipients was unlawful and invalid and ordered that they be reinstated with back pay from the date of cancellation.

"The previous re-registration process had a huge impact on the lives of the millions of people who live in the province. This is so because significant numbers of families depended squarely on grants for a living and also supported other family members with the grants," said Sephton.

More than 1.7 million people in the EC were beneficiaries of child support, old age, disability, foster care and special pension's grants.

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