INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS
Minister of Public Works Lindiwe Sisulu. File photo: by Michael Walker
Durban – Public servants would no longer enjoy pay for months on end while on suspension, Public Service and Administration Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, said on Thursday.
She also announced that her department intended to fast- track the time it takes to resolve misconduct cases.
She said the department’s Anti-Corruption Bureau was key to tackling this issue.
Paying the salaries of employees on precautionary suspension was a huge cost to the state, she said.
“These are some of the problems we hope, once we’ve established the bureau, we will be able to deal with.
“It will deal with the long period it takes to resolve our cases internally, it will deal with unresolved cases that go on forever, it will deal with management members in certain departments who are reluctant to deal with certain cases,” said Sisulu.
She said this reluctance was understandable because officials were having to deal with matters involving officers who were senior to them.
“And the reality of a huge backlog of misconduct cases in the public service and the huge cost to the state in remunerating employees who are not at work thereby creates a culture of impunity in the public service, that it’s okay to go on as we are,” she said.
She said the turnaround time for cases would be much faster and there would be a “faster resolution of all our problems”.
Her department’s deputy director-general, Khumbula Ndaba, said the department was aiming at a period of 20 days to investigate and conclude cases.
She also pointed out that a review of “aggrieved” teachers and their salaries dd not mean they were in line for a pay increase, but was rather intended to see whether the government was getting value for its money from the troubled sector.
President Jacob Zuma announced in his State of the Nation address that a Presidential Remuneration Commission would be set up to investigate the appropriateness of the remuneration and working conditions of state employees like teachers and police.
This has been welcomed by the SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) which has high expectations as a number of its members can’t afford basic necessities like healthcare and accommodation.
But on Thursday, Sisulu said people shouldn’t assume that the commission would translate into higher salaries for teachers.
She said the government had decided to identify a profession within the public sector to concentrate on and “give it the necessary support and necessary energy”.
Sisulu said teachers had been complaining that they had professional qualifications and taught “conscientiously” but young graduates who worked as middle management in the public service earned twice as much.
Sadtu deputy general secretary Nkosana Dolopi said his union hoped pay grievances would be addressed by the commission.
“Teachers should be able to afford houses for themselves and their families. Teachers should be able to afford health care, education and transport,” said Dolopi.
He said the commission should take these issues into account.
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