Mpumalanga blows R9 million paying officials to sit at home

The Mpumalanga government has failed to respond to damning allegations that over R9 million of taxpayer’s money has been used to pay the salaries of officials sitting at home on suspension.

In August last year, then acting minister of Public Service and Administration Thulas Nxesi revealed that government spent R131.2 million in salaries for suspended officials over the last two years.

This excluded data from the Department of Defence and the State Security Agency.

For this period, various departments paid out civil servants on suspension for an average of 86 days, with salaries paid for three months of no work being done.

Gross wastage

The Democratic Alliance in the province has revealed that six departments have splurged millions of rands on salaries for 47 officials who have been sitting at home for over 60 days.

The provincial department of health accounts for the bulk of the wastage, with over R 5.9 million spent on 25 officials on suspension for over a year, with the Public Works, Roads and Transport department following at R 870,588 spent on five officials on suspension for 137 days.

The Department of Education spent R701,601 paying 12 officials on suspension for over 90 days, and Premier Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane’s office cost the taxpayers R602,306 on two officials suspended for over 210 days.

One official at the province’s Department of Social Development has racked up R507,395 whilst sitting at home for 270 days and one official at the Agriculture, Rural Development, Land and Environmental Affairs department cost the taxpayer R400,916 for 49 days at home.

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“This is a total of R 9.000,697.06 spent on officials who are sitting at home doing nothing. Having officials suspended well over 60 days is a violation of the Disciplinary Codes and Procedure for Public Service Policy and the DPSA (Department of Public Service and Administration) Public Service Precautionary Suspensions Guide – which stipulates that the period of a precautionary suspension should not exceed 60 days,” DA leader in the province, Jane Sithole, said.

She lamented that with huge service delivery shortages in the province, it was extremely concerning that since 2016, spending on precautionary suspension has almost tripled from being just over R3.4 million a year to R9 million in the 2021/22 financial year.

Sithole said recognising the negative impact such wasteful expenditure has on the public purse and on service delivery in particular, she implored government to stick to the disciplinary procedures as contained in DPSA guides.

Crushing clear guidelines

She called for adherence to effective systems in place to prevent protracted suspensions, as well as the use of precautionary suspension only when all avenues have proven fruitless, while precautionary transfers should rather be used when possible.

Sithole said assuming that this provincial government would be able to reduce this debt by just R3 million in the coming financial year, this money could be used to buy, deliver and install around 200 5000-liter water tanks for water scarce areas in the province.

She said the money could have also been used to provide food parcels to 2500 families at R1200 each and build an additional 20 low-cost houses for the elderly on the waiting list at R150 000 each. 

“Considering the recent Eskom crisis and stagnant service delivery, the provincial government needs to eliminate the unnecessary expenditure and run government in a way that benefits the people,” she added.

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