{"id":834998,"date":"2025-08-14T11:40:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T09:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=834998"},"modified":"2025-08-14T15:27:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T13:27:18","slug":"millionaire-ghosts-haunting-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/834998\/millionaire-ghosts-haunting-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Millionaire ghosts haunting South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Another municipality in South Africa has been found to be paying millions of rands to deceased and fictitious beneficiaries, adding to a long list of ‘ghost workers’ taking taxpayer money into the void.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a report by Newsday<\/strong><\/a>, the eThekwini municipality has been flagged by the Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA) for material irregularities relating to payments to non-qualifying beneficiaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The payments, amounting to R3.28 million by October 2022 and another R2.34 million likely to be lost in future audits, were made under the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the AGSA found that the municipality made these payments to individuals who were ineligible for this programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This included fictitious beneficiaries, deceased beneficiaries, and beneficiaries employed in other state institutions, which would disqualify them for the EPWP positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the municipal manager being notified of the irregular payments, and multiple investigations being launched, the AGSA said that nothing came of its recommendations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time the eThekwini Municipality published its 2024 annual report, no disciplinary action had been taken against the responsible individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, eThekwini is only one municipality in a long list where hauntings have been sighted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In late 2024, the Polokwane municipality<\/strong><\/a> revealed that it had also lost millions of rands to ghost workers floating around its payroll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, a forensic investigation by Bowman-Gilfillan, instituted by the municipality, uncovered a loss of approximately R500 million due to various corrupt activities between 2008 and 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Included in this was an amount of R128 million paid to municipal employees on questionable overtime \u2014 where one employee was on paid leave for over 5 years \u2014 and at least 44 ghost workers claiming salaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s ghost problem has also spread across public services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Mpumalanga, it was revealed that workers in the province’s Department of Education were fraudulently paid over R6 million \u2013 despite no longer working there or being deceased<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Department of Health in Gauteng, 230 ghost employees were discovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the police service<\/strong><\/a>, traces of ghost workers have also been detected, with the portfolio committee on police requesting an urgent audit of its payroll to exorcise them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ghost mafia<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration Chair, Jan de Villiers<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

South Africa’s worker problem has been flagged multiple times by the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration, which has been calling for a full audit of the government’s payroll system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Committee chair, Jan de Villiers, noted in June that the issue is not simply a payroll anomaly, but rather a deliberate and orchestrated form of systemic corruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was echoed by the department itself, which noted that it would take at least three internal officials to get insert a ghost employee onto the government’s payroll system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To enrol a ghost worker in the system, a department or entity would have to enrol the fictional person in the Personnel and Salary System (Persal) used by all state branches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Administrative records for every person appointed need to be captured on this system, including salary and benefit details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once a user has captured a transaction with a financial impact on the system, authorisation and approval by a different user with the relevant role and responsibilities are required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Villiers said that a huge problem in South Africa is that various government departments and entities handle their staffing in a decentralised manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each department appoints its own public servants, and there is no national guideline for conducting audits to identify ghost workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If South Africa is to successfully exorcise these phantoms from the database and prevent millions from being thrown into the void after them, a new approach would have to be taken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He suggested combining “old school” tactics, like physical audits and workers proving they exist, and new technologies like artificial intelligence being implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DPSA, in partnership with the National Treasury, confirmed it is looking to conduct a much larger-scale audit of the state payroll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it warned that with approximately 1.3 million individuals to cover, the process would be costly and resource-intensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With additional reporting from Newsday<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The South African government is paying millions of rands to fictitious and deceased workers, with a major municipality flagged in yet another audit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":835020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[23366,23367],"class_list":["post-834998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-dpsa","tag-ghost-worker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834998","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=834998"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":835058,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834998\/revisions\/835058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=834998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=834998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=834998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}