Question NW1212 to the Minister of Transport
06 May 2022 - NW1212
Herron, Mr BN to ask the Minister of Transport
(1)Whether, with regard to Operation Ziveze and his statement to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts on 22 March 2022, that the operation had uncovered 3 000 ghost workers receiving salaries in the system at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa, the specified list had been sent to the Department of Public Service and Administration to investigation to investigate if any of the ghost workers are employed elsewhere in the Public Service; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details; (2) on what date was the chief financial officer instructed to stop payments to the ghost workers; (3) what steps have been implemented by his department to recover the salaries and/or monies from the various bank accounts of the recipients?
Reply:
(1) The final list of ghost workers has not been sent to the Department of Public Service and Administration yet, due to internal processes not yet finalised. The processes include verifying when the individual was loaded on to the payroll system, the bank account used and who loaded the individual on the system.
PRASA is still in a process of auditing and confirming the unidentified individuals.
(2) The Group Chief Financial Officer has not been instructed to lock the salaries yet until the verification process by internal audit has been completed. This is to protect the credibility of the process by ensuring that the company does not close salaries of active employees who are on duly authorised absence from work, i.e. on leave, sick leave (short/long term), suspension, maternity leave and employees working outside the cities.
The organisation is following the authorizations and other details on the system before blocking access, consequence managing and reporting this matter to the law enforcement agencies and other state agencies for further interventions.
(3) There are planned processes, dependent on the internal audit process being finalised. Only then will other processes of locking salaries, reporting to SIU/Hawks to attach and recover on behalf of PRASA commence.