Johannesburg - Taxpayers paid more than R10 billion in overtime to more than 500 000 public servants in the past two years.
The payments did not include their normal monthly salaries.
Most of the overtime claims were recorded by the national departments of health and education.
This was revealed in a written parliamentary reply by Public Service Minister Lindiwe Sisulu when she responded to questions from the DA’s Kobus Marais on the amounts paid for overtime.
He also wanted to know the identities of people to whom the payments were made and their departments, as well as reasons for the payment.
While Sisulu gave all the figures, she was unable to justify the payments, saying the actual reasons for overtime were not captured in the government’s salary system.
Gauteng Department of Health officials claimed more than R2bn in the past two years. The figure was higher than other departments nationally and eight provincial departments.
In the financial year 2011/2012, R1.1bn was paid to 31 722 Gauteng health workers. The number went up to R1.2bn paid to 29 972 employees in 2012/2013.
This revelation comes after a bitter fight that started towards the end of last year between Gauteng doctors and the Department of Health over overtime.
Some of the doctors were allegedly found to be claiming for overtime that they never worked, leading to the government stopping all overtime payments while it sorted out the issue.
It was so serious that, two weeks ago, MEC for Health Hope Papo called some of the specialist doctors at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital “tsotsis masquerading as doctors”, saying they had cost the government more than R100m in unlawful overtime claims.
Gauteng was followed by KwaZulu-Natal which paid about R700m in overtime to 11 648 employees in 2011/2012. In 2012/2013, R765m was paid to 12 510 employees.
Department of Public Service and Administration spokesman Ndivhuwo Mabaya said this money was budgeted for because it was known that some people worked longer than the hours they were contracted to and had to be compensated.
Senior managers were not entitled to overtime pay.
Mabaya explained that the reason the lion’s share of the money went to overtime claims in the health and education sectors was because health workers were working more than the required eight hours.
Health workers were followed by security personnel such as the police, and teachers and administrators who would work extra hours marking exam papers, for example.
“These people are not getting a gift, they are being compensated for the work done.
“For example, if someone told a nurse to leave her children at home at night, go to the hospital and look after sick people, according to South African labour law, she would need to be paid for that,” Mabaya said.
When alerted to the fact that some Gauteng doctors had been found to have abused the system and claimed for hours never worked, Mabaya said: “Overtime has to be pre-authorised. Someone, a supervisor, must have signed the document saying the doctor was working.
“That is a criminal activity.”
Mabaya could also not say whether the overtime paid was more, or less, compared to other years as he did not have the figures of how much overtime had been paid in previous years.
The Star