Salaries of 66 alleged ghost workers frozen in Gauteng

The salaries of 66 Gauteng health department employees have been frozen as a campaign to rid the department of ghost workers gathers momentum. 

The programme, called Ziveze (Reveal Yourself), began in October to verify the department’s 85,642 workers in its employ. 

The department said that as of Wednesday, the salaries of 66 employees who remained unverified had been frozen, excluding pending cases. A total of 31,345 employees were successfully verified during phase one, which ran from October 14 to December 6.

The second phase began on January 13 to verify the remaining 54,297 workers across all health facilities. An additional 30,508 employees have since been verified, leaving 23,789 employees who are yet to be verified. The verification team has until March 31 to verify the remaining cohort of employees, department spokesperson Motalatale Modiba said.

The department has issued a warning to those dodging the process.

“All employees have been urged to physically verify themselves by visiting their facility’s human resources office or any designated verification site. Those who continue to avoid the verification process risk permanent removal from the payroll, including criminal cases being opened against them,” Modiba said.

The campaign is one of the interventions initiated by Gauteng health and wellness MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko to ensure that the department curbs wasteful expenditure, by ensuring that every person receiving a salary from the department is a legitimate employee contributing to the provision of healthcare services.

“We have limited resources at our disposal and cannot afford to waste money on ghost employees, while hundreds of healthcare workers are looking for employment and thousands of people require access to healthcare services. There is no reasonable employee who will object to being verified,” Nkomo-Ralehoko said.

She said the Ziveze campaign was a commitment to eradicating payroll fraud and ensuring that public funds were used responsibly to strengthen the healthcare system and improve service delivery. 

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