The editorial of today’s Times of Malta makes a very good point about social benefits’ fraud. It knows of no political boundaries. Its colour is red, blue, green, velvet etc. Neither does it have any frontier or border.

A Google search presents one with a series of stories of sly and fraudulent people. One does really admire their creativity. A person who was receiving a disability pension because of severe back ache posts on facebook photos of his skiing holidays. Others who – according to their medical certificates – can hardly move a chair work with a firm responsible for furniture removals. Persons with hefty bank accounts are among the recipients of social security hand-outs as – ‘officially’ – they are close to the poverty line. Recently the BBC reported the court cases instituted against some of the firemen who were on duty during the tragic terrorist attack of 9/11. These gentlemen promoted fraud into an art form and exploited the public sympathy they received for the service they gave on that fateful day. They had their own agent who rehearsed them to credibly portray their psychological maladies. Social benefits followed their successful charade.

Benefit fraud costs a lot of money. It is estimated, for example, that the total benefit fraud in the United Kingdom in 2009/10 was approximately £1 billion.

Humanity being what it is, we also have our fair share of the problem as the just published report of the National Audit Office and, indirectly, that of the National Statistics Office clearly shows. The former had the bad news while the latter gave us the good news.

The report gave a number of examples of fraud which made the rounds in the social networks and on our news media. Some example struck the imagination of readers more than others.

The prize probably goes to the boxer who managed to defraud the taxpayer of €21,465 in pension funds. This poor thing said that he was visually impaired; an impairment which did not prevent him from still practising boxing, running a boxing club and providing security services.

Neck to neck for audacity comes a business man who carried out transactions worth €3.3 million when he was receiving disability pension and sickness assistance worth €76,000. A really good business man is he.

The NSO report gives us the good news. The number of boarded out individuals was halved between 2004 and 2012, reducing expenditure on invalidity pensions from €35.8 million to €24.6 million. This is a remarkable figure even if one considers that the drop took place within a span of no fewer than eight years.

The fight against abuse is an on-going one. In 2005, the Ministry for the Family and Social Solidarity set up a Benefit Fraud and Investigation Directorate with the aim of investigating reports of alleged abuse in social benefits. Millions of euros have been saved thanks to the work of this unit. But it is never enough.

Minister Marie Louise Coleiro Preca said that she will be handing over to the police the report penned by the National Audit Office. The move is laudable.

However, let me express a caveat. It is good to be tough with those abusing social benefits but one has to beware lest an atmosphere is created that makes people look with suspicion on those receiving social benefits. This has happened in other countries and it can also happen in Malta. Let me give an example.   A poll conducted by the British Trades Union Congress in 2012 found that the British though that social benefit fraud was a lot higher that it really was. They believed that it went up to 27 per ce nt of the British welfare budget. Official UK Government figures have stated that the proportion of fraud stands at 0.7 per cent of the total welfare budget in 2011/12.

Things should be kept in their proper perspective.

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