BL Premium reports that acting Department of Public Service & Administration (DPSA) Minister Thulas Nxesi indicated last week that the lifestyle audits of public servants have been taking place slowly as the capacity to carry them out has had o be built up first.

He expects the pace to increase as the training has now been done. The biggest challenge has been to empower the investigators, the ethics officers. Lifestyle audits are a means to assess the unexplained wealth of public servants that could point to illegal activities such as corruption or doing business with the state and other conflicts of interest. They became compulsory for national and provincial departments from April 1 2021 in terms of public service regulations. In an answer to a parliamentary question, Nxesi advised that 24 national departments and 21 provincial departments had conducted lifestyle audits on all their senior management staff and other designated categories. There are about 40 national departments and more than 100 provincial departments. National and provincial departments will have to report back later this year outlining the progress made in implementing lifestyle audits and the steps taken against those identified for further investigation. “When corruption is detected, the outcome of the audit is shared with the police and a criminal case is opened against the employee. The police will then continue with their own investigation,” Nxesi advised.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Linda Ensor at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)

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