Government is verifying qualifications of senior managers, says Ayanda Dlodlo

Public service and administration minister Ayanda Dlodlo says her department will continue to monitor the capturing of data on qualifications of senior managers to see if there is a need for further investigation.

There was, however, no need to conduct any investigation into how senior managers who were identified as not meeting minimum qualifications requirements were recruited and employed in government, Dlodlo said.

“This is partly because some of the Senior Management System (SMS) members who were identified as not meeting minimum qualifications requirements became senior managers before the 2016 Public Service Regulations were instituted. As such they were compliant at the time of their joining the SMS,” the department said.

The department of public service and administration (DPSA) conducted an audit of the Personal and Salary System (Persal) and found that departments had not been updating qualifications of public servants, especially when they improved their qualifications after being employed.

“A number of departments and government components that updated the qualification information of staff resulted in a 10% improvement recorded. However, not all departments have updated their information and the DPSA will therefore send a reminder with a deadline of end-January 2022,” Dlodlo said.

“As stated before, there might be SMS members who do possess proper qualifications, but such are not reflected on the Persal system. Government departments are continuing to verify qualifications of senior managers and I am convinced that the number of qualifications that are not compliant will decrease once the verification is completed,” she said.

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