721 managers fail to declare directorships

MORE than 700 senior government managers are in hot water for failing to declare their business interests and directorships in several private and public companies.

The Public Service Commission (PSC) yesterday said an investigation had found that 721 public servants failed to disclose they were directors at various companies that were possibly doing business with the state.

Now the commission wants President Cyril Ramaphosa and the provincial premiers to act against those officials who have been implicated.

PSC commissioner Mike Seloane said their findings covered the period between January and March this year.

Seloane said the commission scrutinised all the received financial disclosure forms of senior managers, and they conducted their own investigations to determine whether the disclosures were truthful.

“The scrutiny of the financial disclosure forms revealed that a total of 721 members in both national and provincial departments did not disclose their directorships in private and public companies. This is in contravention of Regulation 19 of the Public Service Regulation, 2016,” Seloane said.

According to the commission, 1943 senior managers in both national and provincial departments had directorships in private and public companies.

Seloane said of these, 721 had not disclosed their directorships and the PSC had to conduct their own independent investigations to uncover the misconduct.

“The national departments have a total number of 485 (43%) of senior managers who did not disclose their directorships, and 236 senior managers are in the provinces.

“Gauteng province has the highest number of 77 (36%) of senior managers, and Mpumalanga has the lowest with four senior managers who did not disclose their directorships.

The number of senior managers doing remunerative work in national departments was 183, and only 72 had written approval – 19 of them were deputy directors-general (DDGs) and two directors-general (DGs), while 38 were chief directors and 124 were directors.

Of all the nine provinces, the Western Cape had the highest number of DGs doing remunerative work. According to the PSC, of the 49 officials found to do remunerative work, 24 were DGs; three were DDGs, five were chief directors and 17 were directors.

Written approval was only given to 22 officials.

In KwaZulu-Natal, the PSC found that 22 officials were doing remunerative work – one DG; two DDGs; three chief directors and 16 directors, but only 14 of them had written approval.

The PSC said all the officials in national and provincial departments doing remunerative work collectively generated an income of R28.9 million.