Tag: Public Service Commission

Almost R1 billion lost to known government fraud in South Africa

3d man tied with text 'fraud' after committing crime.The Times reports that nearly R1-billion lost through fraud in the public service has not been recovered.

Government departments have managed to get less than R1-million back into the state’s coffers.

The Public Service Commission has found that the public service lost R932.3-million to financial misconduct in the 2010-2011 financial year.

According to the commission, misconduct relates to theft, mismanagement, misappropriation and abuse of funds, fraud, corruption and gross negligence.

North West – where fighting between rival factions in the ruling ANC is rife – was the worst offender.

Financial misconduct by public servants cost the province R673821980.45, but the authorities managed to recover only R4530.

Limpopo, which had several departments placed under administration by the cabinet, performed much better than North West.

Financial misconduct cost it R16123114.64 – but only a measly R1367.37 was recovered.

Figures for the 2011-2012 financial year show that the cost of financial misconduct has dropped dramatically to R230-million but cases monitored by the commission rose to 1243 – up from 1035 the year before.

In 2011-2012, departments in Gauteng misused R14-million of public money.

Only R27000 has been recouped to date.

Gauteng flushed away R18463258 and recovered a mere R4259.

Public Service Commission member Mike Seloane said the drop can be attributed to two factors.

“The systems are becoming effective or departments are simply not declaring financial misconduct. There are departments that have declared no financial misconduct,” he said.

The commission will launch an inquiry into the reasons for the low rate of recovery of misused public money.

In addition to financial misappropriation, the commission observed that efforts to deal with the problem were being frustrated by political heads of department.

It expressed displeasure at the “reluctance by departments to disclose fully the financial misconduct cases”.

And it noted that there were “no concrete plans to ensure that money lost to the state was recovered fully”.

The report detailing the latest national financial misconduct figures is expected to be published and presented in parliament in August or September.

South African public servants ‘rude’ – survey

Most people who used services from a sample of five departments felt they received the help they needed, but were frustrated by time delays and rude staff, a new study has found.

The survey by the Public Service Commission (PSC) — released on Thursday — also shows that the departments fared poorly on providing redress to service delivery problems.

Two national and three provincial departments were polled. The survey was conducted with 5,473 users of the family courts run by the national department of justice, the deeds registration offices of the national department of rural development and land reform, and the pharmaceutical services, social grants and housing subsidies sections of provincial departments of health, social development and human settlements.

An average 80 percent of respondents were satisfied with the outcome of their dealings with those sectors of the public service, and 77.6 percent felt they were treated fairly.

But they only awarded the departments 56 percent for courtesy, 50 percent for accessibility and 23.6 percent for providing redress to delivery failures.

Family courts and subsidy applications offices respectively scored 9.6 and 16 percent in this last category.

“The PSC found that on average the service users of the participating departments were satisfied with the outcome of service delivery. This implies that they received the government services they required,” the organisation said.

“However, it was worrying that the receipt of such services was marred by challenges such as redress mechanisms, which was perceived to be poor, the time it took for them to receive such services, accessibility of such services, the provision of information on the services rendered, as well as the courtesy displayed by the public servants when providing services.” – SAPA