Errant public servants ignore act
PUBLIC servants continue to do business with the state with reckless abandon because the Public Administration Management Act is not being enforced.
PUBLIC servants continue to do business with the state with reckless abandon because the Public Administration Management Act is not being enforced.
This is despite President Jacob Zuma having signed the act, which bans state officials from doing business with the government, into law a year ago.
The tardiness in implementing the act is making it difficult for the Public Service Commission to act against errant officials.
In Gauteng, commissioner Mike Seloane found that three senior managers in the departments of co-operative governance, education and economic development have done business with the state between 2013-15 and the province has lost R67.2m in 201415 due to financial misconduct.
Departments should appropriate errant officials’ pensions and they should make reasonable plans for repayments ordered, he said.
“If you owe R1m, you cannot make arrangements (to pay) R10 a month,” said Mr Seloane.
Gauteng wrapped up 595 cases of financial misconduct involving officials in the past five years, said Mr Seloane, who presented a report on the state of the public service in the provincial legislature in Johannesburg yesterday.
He cited former public service and administration minister Collins Chabane’s death in March as one possible impediment to the act being implemented.
The act prescribes punitive measures including fines and imprisonment for officials who do business with the state. It gives the state powers to terminate employment if the law is contravened.
Public Service and Administration spokesman Dumisani Nkwamba confirmed that the act had not been enforced, saying procedures were under way to create structures, such as the national school of government, office of standards and compliance, and public administration ethics, integrity and disciplinary technical assistance unit.
Institute for Accountability in Southern Africa director Paul Hoffman said there needed to be capacity and political will to drive the enforcement of the act.
Mr Seloane recommends in his report that MECs of affected departments “take appropriate steps against the officials who conducted business with the state”.