A senior director in the Gauteng department of education (GDE) was given until two Fridays ago to explain payment discrepancies involving temporary employees and the “ghost interns” or face disciplinary action.
A letter to director for talent management and innovation in the Gauteng City Region Academy Kgabo Morifi, dated September 6, 2024, from acting chief director of human capital development Lydia Phehla, highlighted “Persal capturing errors”.
Persal is the government’s payment system for public servants.
The errors identified included “duplicate data capturing, mixing ID numbers and banking details of beneficiaries: using the same ID number for two beneficiaries, using the same bank account for two different beneficiaries, resulting in one of them not being paid, and in some cases the other one being paid double the stipend, allocating wrong bank account details to an individual not in any of the academy’s programmes, resulting in challenges in recovering the funds as the individuals cannot be traced”, who insiders in the department have dubbed “ghost interns”.
Phehla warned Morifi that the matter had led to unnecessary expenses for which the department was unable to account.
Matter referred to the CCMA
“Due to the wrong information captured, some interns have not been paid since April 2024 and have referred the matter to the CCMA [Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration], causing reputational risk to the [academy] and the GDE,” Phehla continued in the letter.
She emphasised that the department’s payments to the alleged ghost interns resulted in fruitless and wasteful expenditure of R21 000, as the debt was unrecoverable.
“The intern who rendered service to the [academy] has to be compensated for cases for the months of April to June 2024.
“In addition, this is an audit risk that might compromise the status of a clean audit report that the department has maintained for the past two financial years,” Phehla wrote.
Given the risk associated with the errors, said Phehla, Morifi was expected to provide a detailed report of steps taken to correct the situation and the consequence-management steps that he had or will put in place to ensure that responsible people were held accountable for “what might and can be viewed as negligence”.
She warned that Morifi was expected to provide a response by last Friday, and “failure to submit by the indicated date might and can result in you being personally charged for the errors in your capacity as the director: talent management and innovation”.
Employer-employee relationships
Last week Morifi referred Sunday World’s enquiries to department spokesperson Steve Mabona, who declined to comment on “matters regarding employee-employer relationships”.
Mabona said interns were paid monthly without fail.
“In the event that an error is detected, it is rectified, and payments are processed accordingly,” he said.
Mabona added that “performance matters are internal to the department and its employees and will remain as such”.
Mabona is very arrogant. Takes after his boss. Lesufi. He will protect him and he doesnt care as he does what he want and cereal is too scared to take them to task.
They even hijack other staff duties and give it to interns that have relatives within the department. Compromised service delivery
Not surprised!!!
It is well known fact that some of these ghost interns are the girlfriends of these officials and this appears to be the norm. Nothing will happen to them as the protect each other and abuse state funds on their concubines.