POLOKWANE – Polokwane Municipality intends to appoint forensic investigators to probe the existence of so-called ghost employees as well as seemingly excessive overtime compensation paid to officials during the first three quarters of the 2022/23 financial year.
This comes after certain concerns were raised in the first part of the report of forensic investigators Bowman Gilfillan, that was recently tabled during a closed meeting of the municipal council.
In the report of the Auditor-General, it was also highlighted that not all employees who were required to present themselves during the audit process, did so, raising the possibility of ‘ghost’ employees.
It was reported in council that, towards the end of April this year, the municipality had spent more than R96m on overtime with still two months of the financial year to come.
The Water and Sanitation Department spent R29,6m while Energy and Public Safety spent R21,2m and 21,7m respectively.
Community Services took a chunk of R14,4m from the money allocated in the adjustment budget for the 2022/23 financial year. The reasons for the amounts paid were cited as urgent repairs and maintenance, special events outside normal working hours, as well as loadshedding.
The Bowman Gilfillan report indicates that one individual was able to claim and receive overtime in excess of R92 000 in one month and that this was not an isolated incident, clearly showing the deficiencies with regard to monitoring and approval of overtime.
DA caucus leader in council, Jacques Joubert welcomed the resolution to launch an investigation.
“During the debate on the State of the City Address, the DA requested the speaker of council, Welhemina Modiba, to urgently update the council with regard to the second part of the Bowman report as well as other pending investigations still to be submitted to council,” he said, and added that the DA welcomed the suspension of two senior officials and implores municipal manager Thuso Nemugumoni to act swiftly and lay criminal charges against implicated officials as recommended by the report.
