Cope wants Hawks to probe North West’s 36,000 ghost employees

02 September 2015 - 12:22 By RDM News Wire

If the Guinness Book of Records had a “most ghost employees” category‚ it would “undoubtedly” have the North West province “as its prize entry for 2015”‚ the Congress of the People (Cope) said. The party’s Dennis Bloem described as “calamitous that the North West province has 36000 public servants that it cannot account for”‚ and suggested a criminal investigation should be instigated.This figure was reportedly quoted this week by Premier Supra Mahumapelo who said it came from a probe undertaken to verify the province’s employees.“It beggars belief that the North West province allowed 73% of its budget to meet just the salary bill alone. How dumb was that!” exclaimed Bloem about media reports that the North West’s annual salary bill is R19-billion compared to only R3-billion being earmarked for service delivery.“Why did the executive not act to put a ceiling on salary expenditure? Why did the legislature not ask any questions about the disproportionate allocation of resources to salaries?”“Self-interest‚ quite simply‚ triumphed over public interest.”Bloem said that “a crime of this level warrants the immediate intervention of the Hawks” as it “is clearly a matter for specialist police to take up”...

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