City Press reports that despite the political leadership’s repeated promises to crack down on public servants doing business with the state, employees who hold strategic positions in national and provincial departments continue to hold positions as directors of private companies that are scoring big business deals with government.
The companies they are part of have generated about R60 million in contracts with government, but these are only the ones that have been detected. This phenomenon, says the Public Service Commission (PSC), which is the organ of state that monitors and evaluates the functioning of the civil service, is hindering service delivery and fostering a culture of corruption. According to the PSC’s 2020/21 report, many directors-general, deputy directors-general, heads of department, chief directors and directors are serving as directors in various companies in the country and also get paid for their duties in the private sector. This is despite the Public Administration Management Act, enacted in 2014, explicitly prohibiting public servants from doing so. This latest report found that nearly 1,500 of these senior government employees failed to disclose their positions and generated more than R59,168,555 in undisclosed remunerative work done outside their daily duties. The report doesn’t mention the names of the companies, departments and directors, but the shocking statistics indicate that this has resulted in at least 1,371 cases of conflict of interest involving government tenders worth billions of rands. Despite the evidence at its disposal, government has failed to take disciplinary action against the transgressing public servants.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Norman Masungwini at City Press (subscriber access only)
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page