Hajra Omarjee
22 February 2008
Johannesburg — CORRUPTION in the public service has increased dramatically, according to a report released yesterday by the Public Service Commission on government corruption for the 2006- 07 financial year.
A total of 1042 cases of financial misconduct from the country's 14 national and 107 provincial departments were reported to the commission in the period 2006- 07, as compared with 771 in the previous year.
The commission told reporters in Pretoria that although some of the funds were recovered, it estimated the cost of corruption was in the region of R130m. A comparative study of the commission's report highlighted that in the past year the cost of the financial misconduct in government rose 186%.
The commission linked the increase in financial misconduct to the indebtedness of public servants, highlighting that the category of public servants in arrears with micro-lenders also showed the highest levels of corruption.
The commission said between 2006 and last year only 18% of public servants found guilty of financial misconduct were dismissed. The preferred option to deal with corruption in government was to give written warnings to employees.
The report said financial misconduct was most prevalent in the lower-income groups, especially among first-line supervisors in the public service. Cleaners, police officers and nurses were also categorised as big offenders.
While prosecutors were shown to have clean hands in comparison, the justice department itself was identified as the worst offender.
In terms of provinces, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape showed the highest increase in financial mismanagement.
The commission said incorrectly completed financial documents could have been interpreted as financial misconduct.
Another report released by the commission showed that about 20% of the country's 1,2-million public servants owed money to micro-lenders and this amounted to more than R1bn.
The commission described the information in the reports as "worrying". The director-general of the commission, Odette Ramsing, said the situation could be even worse than documented.
"We rely on submissions from departments and our job is to monitor. Although they are telephonic follow-ups, our work relies on the departments' honesty, we rely on trust ... We try to correlate information with the individual departments' annual reports, but mostly its a relationship of trust," Ramsing said.
In terms of the report into financial misconduct, the commission found that 59% of corruption was related to fraud, while 13% of cases related to theft. Of the 1042 instances of misconduct finalised, 83% of perpetrators were found guilty and the government had gone to court in 25% of cases to recover funds.
The commission said systems to record financial misconduct had improved but this was not an excuse for the "worrying trend".
Commission chairman Stan Sangweni called on departments to use the information provided to reverse the trend. "Instruments to deal with these matters are there; the problem is with implementation," Sangweni said.
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