Gauteng provincial government is owed about R300 million “mistakenly paid” to ghost workers who either retired, resigned, or deceased, according to Finance MEC, Lebogang Maile, who said “it’s not a huge problem” but rather “isolated incidents”.
In an interview with Newzroom Afrika on Wednesday, Maile attributed the financial loss to the government’s payroll system not being linked to the Department of Home Affairs.
This gap, he said, has allowed payments to continue long after employees have left the public service.
“The system for instance is not linked to home affairs. If someone passes on, the system will not know until we are made aware, once we are made aware, we will act immediately. But it’s not a huge problem. So it’s isolated cases.
“I think we’re out about 300 million for such… Yes [It is a lot of money], but over a period of time. There’s no little money in public government,” he said.
However, Maile said they have resolved to have a panel of experts to help collect or recover the money.
According to him, this would be much needed to finance education, the road infrastructure and service delivery-related services.
The provincial government has been battling with paying ghost workers.
Earlier this year, reported that the Gauteng Department of Health had to freeze the salaries of 66 employees who failed to verify their employment status.
This was through the department’s Ziveze (Reveal Yourself) campaign, launched in October 2024, designed to eradicate ghost workers from its payroll system amid growing concerns over wasteful expenditure.
“We have limited resources at our disposal and cannot afford to waste money on ghost employees while hundreds of healthcare workers are looking for employment and thousands of people require access to healthcare services,” said Health MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko.
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