By Siyabonga Mkhwanazi
Political Bureau
The Public Service Commission, a watchdog body, wants to conduct lifestyle audits on senior government officials to tackle corruption as top civil servants fail to declare their financial interests.
This was revealed by the commission's director-general, Mashwahle Diphofa, yesterday when briefing the National Assembly's committee on public service and administration on their strategic plan for the 2010/11 financial year.
The commission said some of the senior managers in government had failed to declare their financial interests as required by public service regulations, despite the commission's annual complaints.
Diphofa said the commission had also checked with the Deeds Office and the Companies and Intellectual Property and Registration Office whether these employees had disclosed everything.
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In cases where the senior officials had failed to submit these forms, the commission recommended disciplinary action against them.
However, this recommendation has never been taken seriously by government departments, as the commission had raised the failure to disclose as far back as a decade ago.
The commission's frustrations come months after the auditor-general revealed that hundreds of public servants or their family members were doing business with government departments, prompting a probe from the Treasury.
Although he did not say how soon they would start conducting the lifestyle audits, Diphofa said the commission would first conduct research.
"When we go into an oversight process, we have an internal protocol which says 'what are the applicable prescripts, what are the steps that have to be taken, and under what circumstances can the commission conduct a lifestyle audit?'
"That's what we are talking about here, because otherwise we end up not having an accountable and consistent process within (the commission) through which this is done," Diphofa said.
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This article was originally published on page 2 of The Mercury on March 11, 2010
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