Criminal 'ghost worker' syndicates are operating within governmet - Jan de Villiers, Public Service chairperson

702’s Bongani Bingwa speaks with Jan de Villiers, National Assembly Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration.

Listen below:

While our country battles with severe unemployment and understaffed public facilities, the government is paying a fortune in salaries to ghosts.

Investigations by the Special Investigating Unit have revealed a widespread practice of using taxpayers' money to pay salaries for workers that do not exist.

The Gauteng Department of Health allegedly paid around R6.4million to 230 ghost workers, while PRASA has reportedly spent around R20million a year paying 1000 workers that no-one has ever seen.

De Villiers says that there is no standard or framework to identify ghost workers so the problem could be even larger than we realise.

“We can safely assume there are thousands of ghost workers that have not been discovered. They exist across all spheres of government.”

- Jan de Villiers, Public Service chairperson 

As the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration, he says these aren’t just clerical errors but organised and systemic corruption.

De Villiers is calling for a mass national government audit to identify all ghost workers across the country and put a stop to this practice.

RELATED: Auditor-General report on an organised syndicate of ghost workers

“We must see people being investigated and we must see people going to jail. There must be consequences. This is 100% criminal syndicates operating inside of government.”

- Jan de Villiers, Public Service chairperson

He adds that it takes at least three people to create a ghost worker, showing there must be collusion to enable this.

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