The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa uncovered more than a thousand ghost workers. This is how Twitter responded:

@Mathekgabino

Are these people not paid by HR? Who makes payments for so many people without verification? This is very worrying.

@Manoj91417366

The ghost employees were created internally where some people there were getting these monies. Start at human resources and check into which accounts the salaries were deposited into. You will be surprised what they find, but hopefully won’t be covered up.

@mashoodoz

Who was signing attendance registers on their behalf and who was collecting payslips on their behalf, performance bonuses, uniform and a whole lot of things?

@tshepisotd81

I do not think there is such thing as ghost workers. It is a system of creating fictitious workers and certain people go and withdraw the money. You would not find them personally. You simply trace the withdrawals.

@ottulab

Easy to follow the money trail – into whose accounts, out to which accounts. Who pushes pay buttons, who suddenly stopped payments.

@Bcdyke

Just one question - how on earth do you get to the position of having a significant percentage of your staff (at least 1159) without management being aware of it?

@Moeti93935013

Once the dust settles and the media moves to another scandal, the 1159 ghosts will be re-loaded on the system, and the additional 3 000 will also come back.

@mornesmith

The question that should be asked: into which accounts did those ghost workers’ salaries go? And who are the holders of those accounts?

@mfundoxiniwe

This should be very easy but it is tough to hold people who you might need in December accountable in November. Hope most of our law enforcement worked like the SIU.

@Snoopybez

They must go do the same thing at Eskom, other SOES - all the government departments, if they disappearing off the payroll it’s an inside job.