Govt probes financial implications of ghost workers: Buthelezi

Public Service and Administration Minister Chief Mzamo Buthelezi says the department is compiling a comprehensive report to determine the financial costs of ghost employees.

This comes after Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana highlighted the financial implications of ghost and suspended employees during the budget’s tabling last month.

Addressing the oral reply session in the National Assembly at Parliament on Wednesday, Buthelezi says the investigation is being conducted with the National Treasury.

“The total cost associated with the ghost employees phenomenon has not yet been determined. This cost will only become available once the comprehensive employee verification process across public service has been completed and the financial implications accurately calculated.”

“However, the Department of Service and Administration and the National Treasury are jointly leading this exercise, and once the report is finalised, it will be shared with the relevant committee and this house, of course.”

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Vetting and screening

Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Deputy Minister Namane Masemola says Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa is not responsible for the vetting and screening of administrators at local government.

A member of Parliament wanted to know from Hlabisa if there are any measures in place to conduct the screening and vetting of administrators, especially in municipalities that are dysfunctional.

Replying on behalf of the minister who was not present, Masemola says, “The minister can only make recommendations to the provincial executives to appoint a person or persons with good credentials, qualifications and as well as experience in the sector, unlike the appointment of municipal managers and managers directly account to municipal managers.”

“The current legislation does not place any obligation on provinces to supply screening or related information to the minister prior to or where the appointment of an administrator persists. While the minister ordinarily will not be aware in cases where administrators being employed, senior managers in the same municipality where they would have been deployed to intervene to help with the stabilisation of those municipalities,” he adds.

Ministerial task team

The Minister in the Presidency responsible for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Maropene Ramokgopa, says the department has set up a ministerial task team to look into the performance of the local sphere of government.

Ramokgopa says ministers are expected to formulate a report to be submitted back as part of the assessment.

She says, “The report that comes from the ministerial committee that includes provinces as well as the municipalities, but also some of the private sectors, that are actually necessary to be able to ensure that we do what we need to be done. “

Ramokgopa says, “However, as I have already the National Treasury and the Presidency  have already said that we would then be able to put in place a unit that would look at infrastructure and spending.”