The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) saved about R200 Million through a project to verify employees on its payroll system as its preliminary investigation was not able to verify 1,480 employees while 1,159 resigned during the process.
Following substantial irregularities uncovered within PRASA’s information and communications technology (ICT) systems, Human Capital Management (HCM), and payroll, the Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula launched Project Ziveze 10 months ago to verify all PRASA employees.
While addressing a media briefing on Monday in Johannesburg, Mbalula said the scope of the project also extends to validating whether the employment of foreign nationals is in line with the extant laws.
“We are on course to rid PRASA of all forms of corruption. Those officials who aid and abet these dastardly deeds of corruption will face the full might of the law. We have a duty to ensure that public resource are channelled towards delivering services to the citizens in a responsible and cost effective manner,” the Minister said.
In the Phase 1 of the project, all employees were invited on a voluntary basis to come forward to be verified with copies of their ID Documents, qualifications, and the Human Capital Management (HCM) Employee Data forms.
“During this phase, out of the 17,268 recorded employees on PRASA’s payroll system, 14 268 employees presented themselves for verification. During the same period, 1,159 employees resigned. Failure by 3 000 employees to come forward for physical verification led to suspicions that there could be a number of ghost employees at PRASA,” Mbalula said.
PRASA then commissioned the services of an independent service provider to establish if these were indeed ghost employees and to identify loopholes in the PRASA system as well as identify culpable officials who may have colluded with unscrupulous persons to create ghost employees where this was found to be the case. The investigation flagged 2,143 employees.
“As a consequence of the developments to date, the next steps include taking urgent action to address the findings and challenges identified to date,” the Minister said.
Employees who submitted fake qualifications will be served with letters to explain themselves within 48 hours from today, failing which stricter action will be taken in line with the applicable prescripts. Criminal charges will be laid against those who have committed fraud.
