The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Mpumalanga will write to the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) requesting them to investigate the Accounting Officers of the Provincial Department of Education after it emerged that they paid over R6 million to GHOST employees.
The recent Auditor General’s (AG) Report, dated 9 October 2024, revealed that in the 2023/2024, the Mpumalanga Department of Education paid R6 408 775 worth of salaries “to deceased and terminated employees”.
The education department’s own Annual Report for 2023/2024, confirmed the above. The department’s report reads as follows: “some officials in the department failed to ensure that the department’s system of financial management and internal controls that have been established are carried out within their areas of responsibility and in line with Section 45(a) of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA)”.
The Department’s Report continues to state that “These officials failed to ensure that Human Resource Department is notified timeously in line with Human Resources Management (HRM) directive no.13 of 2012, concerning salaries that must be stopped for employees that either left the department or were deceased. As a result, salaries were made to employees that should have not been paid which resulted in these overpayments being disclosed as part of receivables in note 11 of the financial statements”.
The Democratic Alliance wants the SIU to investigate the Head of the Department (HOD), Lucy Moyane, for these payments to the deceased and terminated employees as it is mentioned in the department’s own Annual Report that “The Accounting Officer (which is the HOD) was notified of the material irregularity on 29 September 2022”.
As a Senior Accounting Officer for the Mpumalanga Department of Education, HOD Moyane, must take the blame for the payments to these GHOST employees especially that she was informed about the irregularity as far back as 2022. What did she do after she was informed? It is obvious that she did nothing because ghost employees kept being paid in 2023/2024. She needs to account.
The SIU must determine the following:
- Who are these deceased and terminated employees still illegally getting salaries from the department of education?
- Who authorises these salaries?
- Which method of payment is being used because Bank surely close deceased accounts?
The DA also calls on department MEC, Cathy Dlamini, to also institute her own internal investigation on this matter. Surely, someone needs to account for the overpayment of taxpayer’s money.