Soaring bill for 6 000 suspended civil servants

THOUSANDS of public servants have been sitting at home for the last year at a cost of R100 million to the taxpayer.

They are on full benefits and full pay pending disciplinary hearings, but one former senior manager believes they have been suspended to prevent them from blowing the whistle on state capture.

This week Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) communications director Moses Mushi confirmed that as of January this year, 6 344 public servants had been suspended “pending disciplinary process at both national and provincial governments”.

Disciplinary cases are supposed to be finalised within 21 months according to public service regulations, but many remain unresolved beyond this.

The DPSA reported to the Forum of South African Directors-General (FOSAD) on Monday this week that misconduct cases in national government dropped from 1 079 to 379 last year, but the costs involved ballooned from just over R11 million in 2019 to more than R20.5m last year.

The public service finalised twothirds of these cases within 90 days, 11 cases took longer, but 165 cases are still pending in the new year. Some 196 public servants were placed on precautionary suspension.

The South African Police Service leads the way in disciplinary costs at R3.8m, closely followed by the Departments of Small Business and Development (R 3.6m), Higher Education and Training (R 3.5m) and Correctional Services (R3.3m).

Provincially, misconduct cases increased from 1 626 to 1 691 yearon-year, with the costs spiralling from R74m to more than R87m.

The executive director of the Public Affairs Research Institute, Dr Mbongiseni Buthelezi, recently wrote a public letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa bemoaning cronyism and cadre deployment in the public service.

“The problem is clear. South Africa’s public service allows politicians to appoint associates and sideline principled public servants, facilitating inappropriate political interference and corruption. Institutions that once served to democratise the state now undermine democratic control.”

This week a former senior manager told the Independent Media R2.1m was spent on a forensic audit to fire him.

The man, who has requested to remain anonymous, said he had been charged with three counts of misconduct after he raised concerns about his director.

“I was in that department for six years and worked for the government for 33 years. These charges were brought against me 18 months before I was due to retire.

“This (same process) happened to a number of people and is a clear example of the ‘weaponising’ of disciplinary processes against people who were actually just doing their jobs,” said the man.

Buthelezi, in his open letter, reminded Ramaphosa of the president’s pledge to craft a clean, competent and efficient public service: “At the centre of this commitment, you put the need to professionalise the public service, to ensure the people who staff it are skilled, selfless and honest, that they are insulated from undue political interference and devoted to serving – over and above any specific party or interest group.

“The problem we’re facing is clear. South Africa’s public service institutions give broad and largely unconstrained powers of appointment and removal to political office bearers.”

On Monday, Ramaphosa announced in his weekly open letter that government was working on an important policy document that aimed to root out corruption among public service officials.

He said the draft National Implementation Framework towards the Professionalisation of the Public Service “aims to build a state that better serves citizens, that is insulated from undue political interference and where appointments are made on merit”.