SOUTH AFRICA
Photo: ANA
South Africa’s Public Service Commissioner, Michael Seloane (pictured) says he is dismayed at the high vacancy rate in some Government Departments and Agencies — despite the country’s high unemployment rate.
He said some of the vacancies had remained unfilled for years and he urged action on them immediately.
Mr Seloane said in areas where Government institutions operated with inadequate staff, complaints of poor service delivery were inevitable.
“We have just conducted and finalised a study in Gauteng Province, which says when Public Servants are aggrieved, they are prone to take more leave,” Mr Seloane said.
“When they take more leave that means performance of their Departments is going to be affected or the people that remain in the Department are overworked.”
He said the Public Service Commission was so concerned about the matter it was ready to intervene in the hiring practices of both national and provincial Government Departments with the aim of reducing all vacancy rates to below 5 per cent.
“There is unemployment, yet there is also a high vacancy rate … it doesn’t correlate,” Mr Seloane said.
“We need to make sure that where there is a vacancy, it must be filled.”
His research showed that during the period 1 October to 31 December 2017, the vacancy rate at the national level was 7.6 per cent, while the Province with the highest vacancy rate was Eastern Cape, with 23.4 per cent.
Pretoria, 28 March 2018
