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By Lebone Mosima
The North West Department of Education says it has identified about R24 million for recovery in 2,128 staff debt cases, as it tries to recoup salary overpayments made to former employees.
The department said on Wednesday that it had made progress over the past three years in tracing affected employees and requiring them to sign Acknowledgement of Debt forms to facilitate repayment.
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It said in a statement that the debt had accumulated since 2003, largely because of manual processes used to submit termination documents from district offices. “Many of these areas are remote and rural, which has caused delays in submitting critical documentation”.
“As a result, some employees continued to receive salary payments after their termination, leading to overpayments.”
The department said salaries are processed in advance around the 15th or 24th of each month, increasing the risk of overpayments when exits are not captured in time.
It also rejected allegations that “ghost workers” were involved.
“These cases do not involve ghost employees; all affected individuals were legitimately employed by the department,” the department said.
The Public Servants Association (PSA) said last week that the matter was actually about a “R100 million ghost-employee payroll scandal”.
It rejected the department’s attempt to explain it away as “isolated incidents” linked to manual system limitations. The union said the department’s account was “misleading” and that the losses pointed to a “systemic governance failure”.
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The PSA said Auditor-General findings under Material Irregularity 01 of 2022/23 showed the department had recorded staff debts of more than R100 million, including salaries paid to employees who had resigned, retired or died, but had not been removed from the payroll in time.
It said this reflected failures in financial controls, human resources verification and executive oversight. Routine audits and reconciliations should have detected the problem earlier, it said.
The union said improved systems alone would not be enough without accountability, and called for a forensic investigation into the payments.
It said the head of department and chief financial officer should vacate their positions immediately and that implicated officials should be suspended pending the outcome of a full probe.
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But North West Education MEC Viola Motsumi said in Wednesday’s statement that the department had introduced measures to address the causes of the problem, including an electronic system known as Salary Attendance Leave and Termination.
“This system has significantly reduced salary overpayments linked to delayed terminations. It updates Human Resources in real time and sends email notifications when an employee exits, enabling immediate processing on PERSAL,” she said.
“The department has also trained officials on the system to ensure its effective use. Since its implementation, there has been a noticeable reduction in staff debt.”
Motsumi said investigations into the causes of the problem and the implementation of consequence management were continuing.
“To date, 24 disciplinary letters and 64 warning letters have been issued.”