Nine of the 10 heads of provincial government departments will face the music if they fail to act against the 132 government officials under their management who were found to be doing business with the state.
All the provincial government departments – except for economic development, environmental affairs & tourism, which is headed by MEC Oscar Mabuyane – were red-flagged for having officials trading with the state.
Mabuyane commissioned an investigation into 1,000 Bhisho employees who were red-flagged last year, after the state’s payment system suggested they were flouting government policy and trading with the state.
In his response to questions raised in the Bhisho legislature on February 6 by DA MPL Bobby Stevenson, Mabuyane said 132 employees had been found to be in the wrong.
He said he had asked the respective officials to report back to him by the end of January.
Mabuyane said he had also instructed heads of departments of the affected departments to take action.
“Accounting officers have been cautioned that failure to take necessary action will result in [me] taking appropriate action against them, after having consulted their executing authorities and the premier.
“The departments have been requested to respond to provincial treasury in writing about their findings, measures implemented to prevent officials from doing business with government, and remedial actions taken against the identified officials.”
Mabuyane had asked for the departments to respond by January 31.
The officials now identified as doing business with government include 76 workers from provincial and national education departments as well as 42 from provincial and national health.
Mabuyane’s spokesperson, Mvusiwekhaya Sicwetsha, said they had received undertakings from the affected HoDs that they had either “issued written warnings to the affected officials, [or] are busy issuing written warnings, or are in the [process of] conducting internal investigations with regard to the matter”.
“Failure by departments to respond appropriately will see the matter being escalated to the premier. The premier has additional powers with which to discipline defaulting accounting officers,” said Sicwetsha on Thursday.
Stevenson also wanted to know how many municipal officials were guilty of doing business with the government, but Mabuyane said the government was unable to verify this information as municipalities used different procurement and payment systems.
Breaking down the departments, Mabuyane said the provincial education department, with 69 employees doing business with the state, had the highest tally of culprits, followed by the provincial health department with 40. There were also seven civil servants doing business with the national health department.
Stevenson had also queried the legality of government officials benefiting from government tenders.
In the reply, Mabuyane stated that regulations prohibit public service employees from doing business with the state.
He added that last month he had written to accounting officers of the affected departments to take the remedial action to address the issue of officials “who have shareholding in companies registered” on the treasury’s central supplier database (CSD).
Moreover, accounting officers needed to ensure they avoid a recurrence of this issue. Mabuyane threatened to take action against accounting officers should they fail in their duty to take the necessary action against subordinates.
“The department has been having ongoing discussions with the national treasury to refine the registration on the central supplier database, in order to flag and prohibit anyone recognised as a government official from registering on the CSD,” Mabuyane wrote.
Reacting to Mabuyane’s reply on Thursday, Stevenson said: “How do they think that they can get away with this?
“This is simply an extension of state capture.”
He called for “firm disciplinary action” to be taken against the culprits who were “double dipping”.
Stevenson said the systems used to flag servants who have dealings with government institutions also need to be expanded to evaluate municipal contracts.
“One cannot be allowed to double dip. You are either a civil servant, or you are a business person.
“When civil servants do business with the province, it opens the floodgates for corruption and maladministration.”..