Employees are faking death to claim from NAPSA

THE National Pension Scheme Authority (NAPSA) has unearthed a scam in which some serving employees are faking deaths in an attempt to claim pension from the institution.

Others are forging details for employees and then forwarding them to NAPSA claiming survivors’ benefits, and this has made the institution lose an undisclosed millions of Kwacha.

The fraudsters faking their deaths are using unsuspecting people to present fake documents such as death certificates to NAPSA, while those who attempt to claim survivors’ benefits have in some cases obtained people’s details without their knowledge.

Several unsuspecting members of the public are reported to have been used as fronts to make fraudulent claims so that in an event the scheme is discovered, fraudsters would not be linked to the case.

Recently, NAPSA intercepted several fake claims and investigations have since been launched in an effort to corner the culprits.

NAPSA public affairs manager Judith De Silva confirmed to the Sunday Times that most of the fake claims related to survivors’ benefits.

“In some cases, they obtain fake records with details of the member and lodge a claim with these details,” Ms De Silva said.

“In other instances, they use other people to lodge the claim and you find that when that scam is unearthed, there will be nothing linking these fraudsters to the case and the people that were used ended up being prosecuted for the offence.”

Ms De Silva said it was difficult to determine the actual number of fake claims and the amount lost because the authority needed to go through various files, and that such cases started when the institution was still Zambia National Provident Fund (ZNPF).

Members of the public have since been advised to safeguard all information relating to their contributions and benefits with NAPSA as it could fall into wrong hands.

They have also been advised to make sure they update all information relating to their records with NAPSA whenever their status changes such as when they marry, divorce and when they have a baby.

Ms De Silva, however, said NAPSA had since come up with a number of measures to ensure that fraudulent claims were not made, and these included death verifications and presentation of passport size photographs.