The Citizen reports that Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula says the ghost workers scam at the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) will be referred for criminal investigations.

He provided an update on Project Ziveze – an employee verification process – on Monday. The project was launched last year after irregularities were uncovered within Prasa’s ICT, human resource and payroll systems. Prasa earlier this year identified 3,000 employees who could not be verified due to the workers being without valid ID documents and the necessary work permits as required by law. Mbalula said Prasa employees were initially asked to come forward on a voluntary basis in order to be verified during phase one of Project Ziveze. However, only 14,268 of the 17,268 recorded employees on the state-owned entity’s payroll system presented themselves for verification. During the same period, 1,159 employees resigned. This led to a preliminary investigation being launched in which 2,143 employees were flagged and later grouped into the following categories: possible ghost workers; employees masquerading as someone else (identity theft); employees who submitted fraudulent qualifications; and employees facing serious criminally charges. Mbalula said the early investigation concluded that approximately 1,480 employees could not be physically verified and their documentation was non-existent as well. The investigation also revealed a number of instances where ID photos did not match the face of employees. Mbalula confirmed that Special Investigating Unit (SIU) was involved in the further investigations.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Molefe Seeletsa at The Citizen

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