South Africa’s public sector faces massive clean-up as billions paid to 'ghost workers'

Ghost workers are costing the state billions, with thousands of phantom employees drawing salaries in health, education and transport departments.

Government has launched a major payroll clean-up and unions say it’s long overdue to turn “ghost busting” into real accountability.

The Health Department in Gauteng reportedly paid R6.4 million to 230 ghost workers, while the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) has around 3,000 phantom employees costing R20 million yearly, and the Education Department in Mpumalanga spent R28.2 million in salary overpayments.

The Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA), together with the National Treasury and the Auditor-General, has launched a nationwide audit to clean out government payroll systems.

Measures include in-person and biometric verification to confirm that public servants actually exist and report for duty, a move officials have dubbed 'turning the DPSA into ghost busters'.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has welcomed the audit, calling ghost posts a ‘particularly grotesque form of state capture and corruption'.

"There needs to be outside supervision from the Auditor-General; from the Public Service Commission. It's really to make sure that you don't have the ghost verifying that they're not ghosts. That we have the ghost busters removing the ghosts and then we go to hire warm bodies to do an actual job," says COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator Matthew Parks.

He adds that the scam could only occur with internal collusion and described it as a 'tragedy' amid severe staff shortages in public services.

"We have huge numbers of vacancies across the state. In Home Affairs, you've got about a 60% vacancy rate, and as a consequence, there are long queues to get your ID books. We have a shortage of teachers, and we're seeing a rise in the ratio between teachers and learners. We've seen the police head count decrease over the past decade, and as a consequence, that puts more pressure on the police when dealing with crime. The state has really been struggling with a shortage of money, and so it really becomes unforgivable that people have still found ways to steal."

Parks has urged that those responsible face prosecution and that recovered funds be redirected to hiring people to improve service delivery and cut unemployment.

To listen to Parks in conversation with CapeTalk's Lester Kiewit, use the audio below: