The Public Service Commission (PSC) has vowed to intensify in 2020 its campaign of ensuring that national and provincial governments deal with delinquent officials who continue to do business with the government without permission.
The commission also plans to pressure government departments into paying their service providers within 30 days as stipulated in the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA).
Commissioner Mike Selloane said the PSC did not have powers to act on these officials and departments, saying they were dependent on President Cyril Ramaphosa and the nine provincial premiers to crack the whip on officials who failed to submit their financial disclosure forms to the PSC.
He said that over the years they had made several reports about officials who failed to comply, but their accounting officers (heads of departments) had failed to act on their recommendations.
“Due to the increasing number of accounting officers failing to act, we wrote to the president and the premiers in June asking them to act against the heads of department,” Selloane said.
In May, the PSC received 9834 (97%) of financial disclosure forms out of the expected 10135 from senior management service (SMS) members in national and provincial government departments, and national government components in terms of Regulation 18 of the Public Service Regulations (PSR), 2016.
The total number of financial disclosure forms excluded those of SMS members in the State Security Agency.
Selloane said the number of SMS members in national departments who were supposed to disclose their financial interest was 5797, but only 5737 had made disclosures to the commission.
“This number represents 96.6% of the total number of financial disclosure forms that we expected. The national components submitted to the PSC 56 (39%) of the financial disclosure forms, out of a total of 143 that were expected.
“This was despite that fact that the SMS members who disclosed their financial interest within stipulated due date were 88,” he said.
He pointed out that the total number of SMS members who did not disclose their financial interest as required by the PSR was 81.
The majority of these SMS members - 63 - were from national departments. The Eastern Cape province has the highest number - 11 - of SMS members who contravened Regulation 18 of the PSR, 2016, by not disclosing their financial interest by the stipulated due date.
The Eastern Cape government has 647 SMSes in all its 13 departments, but only 636 submitted their forms.
While Selloane expressed unhappiness about the conduct of the officials, he had a reason to smile after the Free State government under Premier Sisi Ntombela recorded a 100% submission rate of financial disclosure forms.
All 370 officials in all 12 departments of the Free State government submitted their forms before the deadline. Officials in the Northern Cape under Premier Zamani Saul and North West under Premier Job Mokgoro have also made 100% disclosures. Northern Cape has 243 SMS members while North West has 356.
Gauteng, which has the largest number of SMS members, had only one person failing to submit financial disclosure out of 774 members.
Limpopo also had one person failing to submit out of a total of 490 members, as well as Mpumalanga with 308 and Western Cape 406.
Two officials failed to submit their disclosure forms in KwaZulu-Natal out of a total of 601. Another headache for the PSC is the failure of government departments to pay their service providers on time.
Selloane said some of the aggrieved companies had directly lodged their complaints with the commission - one was ICT Works that was allegedly not paid by the National Treasury.
“The PSC engaged with the National Treasury soliciting reasons for non-payment, and subsequently received feedback stating that the matter was sub judice because a court process was under way,” Selloane said.
According to the PSC report, the National Treasury has an unpaid invoice total of more than R12 million for August. It is the only outstanding debt for the National Treasury.
“A challenge remains with a few departments that do not adhere to the requirement,” Selloane said.
In the report, the PSC again singled out the Department of Water and Sanitation under Minister Lindiwe Sisulu as the worst defaulter. However, according to the report, the department has significantly dropped its debt from R1.2 billion in July to almost R852million in September.
In the provinces, Gauteng owed service providers R1.8 billion in July and dropped to R1.4 billion in September but still remains top of the list of defaulters.
The Eastern Cape, despite being in the top three defaulters, has improved significantly in settling its debts. In July, it owed service providers more than R1.2 billion and in September the figure dropped to R39 million.
He said failure by government departments to honour their financial obligations has wrought untold damage on the economy.
“This inevitably has resulted in many retrenchments,” Selloane said.