{"id":794517,"date":"2024-10-09T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=794517"},"modified":"2024-10-09T14:24:21","modified_gmt":"2024-10-09T12:24:21","slug":"one-government-employee-has-received-a-salary-for-5-years-while-suspended","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/794517\/one-government-employee-has-received-a-salary-for-5-years-while-suspended\/","title":{"rendered":"One government employee has received a salary for 5 years while suspended"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>South Africa\u2019s Minister of Public Service and Administration, Mzamo Buthelezi, revealed that 471 public servants are on paid suspensions and that one received a salary for 5 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The minister provided this information as part of a parliamentary question and answer session last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Member of Parliament Sixolisa Gcilishe asked the minister what number of public servants were currently on paid suspension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She also asked the minister what the longest period a public servant spent on paid suspension was&nbsp;in the 2023-24 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Buthelezi responded, saying that as of the end of July 2024,&nbsp;288 public servants from national departments and 183 from provincial departments were on paid suspension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He added that 54 public servants from national and provincial departments were suspended for longer than one year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cases where a public servant has been on paid suspensions for longer than 3 years were recorded by:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Department of Defence (5 years)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Department of Higher Education and Training (4 years)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) (3 years).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Gauteng Province Department of Economic Development (4 years)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Human Settlements (4 years)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Kwa-Zulu Natal Department of Education (4 years)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe longest period a public servant has spent while on paid suspension in the 2023-24 financial year is 5 years,\u201d Buthelezi added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of the 54 government employees on suspension, 17 were from the education sector, and eight were&nbsp;from the NPA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Buthelezi explained that the cases where employees have been on paid suspensions for longer than a year are complex and could not be finalised within the prescribed period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the education sector, cases involving teachers committing sexual transgressions against learners are referred to the Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe ELRC indicated it has a backlog of cases, which impacts the finalisation of cases,\u201d Buthelezi said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some of the cases in the NPA involve allegations of corruption, fraud and financial investigations, and prosecutors cannot be considered for precautionary transfers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some of the cases in the NPA were delayed due to attempts to interdict the disciplinary process and by challenging suspensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The table below shows the cases where public servants have been on paid suspensions for longer than a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><div class=\"table-responsive\"><table class=\"table\"><tbody><tr><td><strong>Number of years<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>Number of cases<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><tr><td>More than 1 year, less than 2 years<\/td><td>32<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>More than 2 years, less than 3 years<\/td><td>16<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>More than 3 years, less than 4 years<\/td><td>1<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>More than 4 years, less than 5 years<\/td><td>4<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>More than 5 years, less than 6 years<\/td><td>1<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>&nbsp;TOTAL<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>54<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa\u2019s Minister of Public Service and Administration, Mzamo Buthelezi, revealed that 471 public servants are on paid suspensions and that one received a salary for 5 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":794522,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[20663,20662],"class_list":["post-794517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-minister-of-public-service-and-administration","tag-mzamo-buthelezi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794517"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":794586,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794517\/revisions\/794586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}