Officials who resign to dodge disciplinary hearings will soon have nowhere to hide.
This is according to the department of performance monitoring and evaluation’s Jonathan Timm.
“If you resign to avoid disciplinary proceedings, any future employer should be able to access that information on persal, red flag it and certainly should have you account for that,” Timm told the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) on Tuesday.
The committee was briefed by the presidency on all reports referred by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to establish how they have been processed. The committee also received a progress report on the suspension of public works director-general Sam Vukela.
Timm told MPs that minister in the presidency Mondli Gungubele appeared before Scopa in February and acknowledged that the administrative systems in the presidency regarding processing SIU reports lacked capability and needed to be addressed.
On disciplinary referrals, Timm said: “We note low levels of compliance by departments on updating the status of disciplinary cases on the persal (personnel and salaries) system. There is an inability for the labour relations official to access the persal.”
The improved relationship between the department of public service and administration and SIU means there is efficiency in ensuring transgressions will be captured to prevent other departments from employing tainted officials.
In the 2021/2022 financial year there have been 463 referrals for disciplinary action arising from SIU investigations.
“KwaZulu-Natal has received the highest number of referrals (202), followed by Gauteng (78) and then the Eastern Cape with (58).”
National departments have the highest number of disciplinary cases at 173.
“This is followed by public entities (132), then municipalities at 101 and then provincial departments (57).”
Institutions with the highest number of referrals include Sassa, the departments of education and health, the eThekwini Municipality, the SANDF and Umgeni Water.
On PPE referrals under proclamation R23 of 2020, Timm said there are 176 individuals where referrals have been made.
“Out of the 176, 51 of these matters have been finalised and of these, 29 resulted in a guilty verdict.”
Nine officials resigned before or during the disciplinary processes.
“If an official resigns to avoid sanction, that needs to be recorded on persal,” he said.
On administrative referrals, Timm said: “We have established a working group that meets every two weeks, which identifies various interventions that can improve consequence management.”
“A total of 41,187 referrals for 2020/2021 and 24,782 referrals for 2021/2022 for administration action are contained in the SIU’s data sets. For the two financial years combined, this is a total of 65,969 referrals for administrative action.”
The vast majority of these relate to the removal of a deceased person from the Enatis database.
“The SIU has identified a scam that uses the transferring of money owed to deceased people (ID numbers) on the Enatis system.
Of 65,971 referrals, 65,319 related to removals from the database, leaving 650 referrals for administrative action.
There are 353 referrals relating to placing suppliers on the National Treasury’s restricted suppliers’ register. Of these, 16 have been restricted.
On criminal referrals, Timm said 562 cases were sent to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in the 2020/2021 financial year. Gauteng has the highest number of these.
“The project of establishing the SIU referrals co-ordination and monitoring mechanism is making good progress, notwithstanding the complex implementation environment.”
SIU head Andy Mothibi said his team was delighted to see a system that will help to monitor the consequences and referrals of the SIU.
“This is really going to help us and government beyond the SIU works and towards building a capable and ethical state.”
Mothibi said when officials are faced with disciplinary action, they tend to resign.
“I am glad now that it is going to be recorded on the persal to DPSA (department of public service and administration) to consider a mechanism to monitor those who resign so they don’t crop up or appear in other state institutions. We want to stop that.”
Scopa chair Mkhuleko Hlengwa applauded the presidency’s work in addressing the challenges of holding people accountable.
The ANC’s Sakhumzi Somyo and Nokuzola Tolashe echoed Hlengwa’s sentiments. Tolashe said while there is a persal system “there should be a way of bringing local government officials in this system so we are able to deal with all of their shenanigans”.
Deputy director-general of corporate management in the presidency Matsietsi Mokholo said: “In the environments that have been able to automate their HR and finance systems you see a seamless relationship. We want to make sure we bring in technology so finance and HR do not operate in silos.”
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