Johannesburg - Looking for a job that will leave you with a good chance of a nice payout if you clash with your bosses? Try the state entities under the departments of finance and transport, which together have spent nearly R50 million since 2009 paying people to go away.
A recent round of questions by the DA to all departments, asking for details of payouts on employees’ contracts since 2008/9, has started to reveal a growing trend of golden handshakes. Most of these are in the state-owned entities.
While the Treasury hasn’t paid off any of its own employees, some of the entities that report to it have written rather generous cheques – a whopping R20.9m since 2008/9.
Top of the list is the R9.35m “separation agreement” that SAA made to chief executive Khaya Ngqula in 2008/9. The Land Bank, the South African Special Risks Insurance Association, the Financial Intelligence Centre, the Government Employees Pension Fund and the Government Pensions Administration Agency have all paid staff to leave.
The Public Investment Corporation paid out R3.2m in unspecified confidentiality agreements in the past year, and the SA Revenue Service, which had acrimonious and damaging public infighting recently, paid R4.8m in unspecified “confidentiality agreements”.
Transport is another sector that pays people to leave, often.
Again, it’s not the departmental employees who are paid off but those in the entities, who between them got R28.5m.
Air Traffic and Navigation Services spent R3.7m on 15 people. The Passenger Rail Agency of SA spent R16.3m to move on five executives, including the “breakdown of trust” pay-off to Metrorail chief executive Sisa Mtwa. One entity paid R1.3m to staff accused of financial misconduct or sexual harassment. The Road Traffic Management Corporation paid an undisclosed amount in “confidential” agreements to six people and the Cross-Border Road Transport Agency paid a total of R4m to eight people following allegations of misconduct or poor performance.
Science and Technology entity, the National Research Foundation, paid R4.6m to Dr Gatsha Mazithulela after restructuring.
Rural Development and Land Reform spent R980 000 for the “redetermination” of director-general Thozi Gwanya’s contract.
Social Development pensions entity Sassa paid R1.46m to two people.
Another parliamentary reply indicates some other interesting spending: in May, Social Development paid lawyers R223 000 to review a Constitutional Court judgment on the pensions payment tender “and the leakage of information to media houses”.
Some departments – Public Enterprises, Public Service and Administration, and Arts and Culture – confirmed payouts but wouldn’t give Parliament the details.
Sport and Recreation paid off unspecified contractors linked to departing ministers, but record-keeping in that department seemed to have gaps as officials couldn’t provide the answer to another parliamentary question of considerable public interest: Which members of the World Cup local organising committee went to Paris during 2004 to 2008? The department could say only it was “not aware of any travel to Paris by any members of the former Fifa 2010 World Cup local organising committee” but would “endeavour” to enquire about this as the committee no longer exists.
The Star