BusinessDay reports that the 2025 medium‑term budget policy statement (MTBPS) makes clear that fiscal consolidation is not only about cutting budgets but also about enforcing accountability in the public service.
With the compensation of employees projected at R817.5bn in 2025/26, the wage bill remains one of the largest items of expenditure. The Treasury has signalled that tackling inefficiencies in payroll and managing staff exits would be central to stabilising personnel costs. One of the most important interventions is the audit of ghost workers across national and provincial departments. Working with the Department of Home Affairs and the SA Revenue Service, the Treasury analysed payroll, population and tax data. The exercise flagged 8,854 high‑risk cases requiring verification, including individuals drawing salaries from multiple departments, inactive employees still receiving payments, deceased individuals listed on payrolls and bank account anomalies suggesting fraud.
A two‑month verification process will begin in January, after which appropriate legal action will follow where fraud is detected. The next phase will introduce a single sign‑on application for public servants and upgrades to the government payroll system to automate monitoring and prevent future irregularities. Complementing the payroll clean‑up is the early retirement programme, begun in October. The Treasury allocated R5.5bn over the medium term to enable 15,000 exits by 2026/27.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Tara Roos at BusinessDay
- Read too, TARS to root out government ghost workers, at Moneyweb
- And also, Government to cut spending by R6.7 billion as underperformers get axed, at BusinessTech
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