The South African Government is paying more than R131 million ($A11.32 million) per year to a group of 305 Public Servants who are on suspension with full pay, the Department of Public Service and Administration has disclosed.
The top-earning official under suspension is in the Department of Public Service and Administration itself, at an annual cost to the state of R4.95 million ($A430,00).
While that is exceptional, there are several suspended officials making more than R2 million ($A170,000) while barred from doing any work.
The suspensions are unevenly distributed, the data shows.
At a national level, 30 per cent of the suspended Public Servants are from the Department of Home Affairs, notorious for its problems with delivering services such as issuing identity documents.
Among the Provinces, KwaZulu-Natal nominally employs around a third of all suspended officials, a total of 75, mostly in the Education and Health Departments.
A little under a fifth of all the suspended Government employees are classified as senior Public Servants.
In a separate written reply in the National Assembly, the Public Service Department said a total of just over 3,000 Public Servants had been fired in the last financial year, up sharply from some 2,300 the year before, and around 2,500 the year before that.
Exactly why they were fired is not clear in the vast majority of cases.
Three were dismissed for falsifying documents, three more for criminal offences, one for perjury and nine for ‘unsatisfactory attendance’.
A further 208 were asked to leave under dishonourable discharges, and 354 for deserting their posts.
In 2,424 cases, personnel records simply indicate they were fired for “misconduct not indicated”.
Pretoria, 5 November 2022
