• The Polokwane Democratic Alliance and People’s Congress have called on the municipality to modernize its administrative system
• This was after a forensic report revealed the municipality had lost more than R100 million in excessive overtime, ghost employees and employees holding multiple positions.
• The DA and COPE spoke to Briefly News and lamented that Polokwane is still using an outdated manual system for his administration.

With more than seven years at Daily Sun and Vutivi Business News, Tebogo Mokwena, a In brief News current affairs journalist, offered insights into South African politics, national, provincial and local governance, Government of national unity, political parties and Parliament.

POLOKWANE—Opposition parties in Polokwane Municipality have called for an urgent upgrade of the administrative system after more than R100 million was leaked from state coffers due to maladministration. They also called on the municipality to take tough action against those involved in this corruption.

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The opposition denounces an obsolete system

In brief News spoke to Democratic Alliance and the city’s People’s Congress after a forensic report revealed that the city lost R128 million workers who excessively apply for overtime, ghost workers and employees holding more than one position. Jacques Joubert, from the prosecutor, told Briefly News the auditor general had raised issues of poor record keeping and internal controls.

Bad administration nightmare: DA

Joubert said the biggest concerns regarding ghost employees were that physical checks of employees were not being carried out, that SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) systems had not been working since 2010 and that the municipality had a system manual for overtime and no proper recording. keep for approval of leave.

“There have been abuses of these poor control measures on all fronts. The problem boils down to poor management and political will to adequately address these issues,” he said. In brief News.

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An upgrade is needed

Erick Mohlapamaswi of COPE said In brief News that an upgrade is urgently needed. He criticized the city for its manual administrative system, even though it aspires to become a metropolitan city. He also called for disciplinary measures will be taken and brought before the law.

“Polokwane Municipality must use an electronic administrative system linked to the Ministry of Home Affairs to facilitate employee verification. The use of artificial systems will end duplication of payments and eliminate the Ghostgate scandal,” he said. declared.

Joubert said the municipality must implement an electronic system with payroll software and appropriate monitoring and control mechanisms.

Implement report recommendations: DA

Joubert also said the municipality should implement the recommendations of the Bowman Gilfillan forensic report. This will reduce the re-emergence of systemic problems and the potential deterioration of financial control measures.

“If this is not done, it will still have a massive impact on service delivery,” he said.

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SIU investigates 1,200 ghost PRASA employees

In a related article, In brief News reported that the Special Investigation Unit announced that he was investigating 1,200 ghost employees to the Passenger Rail Agency of the public entity of South Africa (PRASA).

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s proclamation gave the SIU the power to investigate ghost employees. This follows the disappearance of 1,000 employees from payrolls after PRASA launched an earlier internal investigation.

Source: In Brief News