The government has roped in retired judges to deal with the backlog of disciplinary cases in various departments across the country.
This comes as the government is racking up a huge salary bill paying millions of rand to dozens of national and provincial officials who are on suspensions for sitting at home.
The state has racked up a massive salary bill of more than R675bn a year, with about R160m going towards suspended officials.
The department of public service and administration (DPSA) has identified the departments of higher education and correctional services, and the Northern Cape, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and North West provinces, as the main culprits who take long periods before concluding disciplinary processes.
The retired judges will form part of the department’s public administration ethics, integrity and disciplinary technical assistance unit.
“In resolving one of the challenges mentioned above, a pool of retired judges has been created to serve as chairpersons in high-profile disciplinary hearings and their continued commitment in assisting to ensure that justice is served is highly commendable and appreciated,” DPSA spokesperson Kamogelo Mogotsi said.
Mogotsi said the department had identified various problems that led to the prolonged disciplinary processes, including interference by outside stakeholders.
He said that some of the other hindarences identified included complexity of cases, unavailability of investigators and chairpersons for disciplinary hearings and difficulties in engaging with organised labour.
“The DPSA has, through the unit, commenced with workshops which are aimed at assisting and equipping departments to efficiently and effectively finalise disciplinary cases,” Mogotsi said, adding that these workshops had already been conducted in the North West, Limpopo, Northern Cape, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal.
The assistance of the Canadian government was also sought to launch the strengthening ethics and integrity project (SEIP).
“An electronic data-capturing tool was developed for departments to use to capture relevant information pertaining to precautionary suspensions and to identify challenges that result in overdue precautionary suspensions. The departments are required to submit this data to the DPSA at the end of each month,” Mogotsi said.
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