EDITORIAL | Ghost payments and workers haunt our public service

The recent revelations regarding the Ekurhuleni municipality are nothing short of a scandal that should ignite outrage among citizens.

According to a report by the Sunday Times, the municipality paid a staggering R5m for consultancy work that was never performed and, alarmingly, for which there was no official appointment.

This is a shocking misuse of public funds in a city already mired in allegations of gross mismanagement and corruption.

Just last week, the Sunday Times reported an even more disturbing story about employees with ties to an internal fraud scheme that deleted municipal arrears on numerous accounts from the city's database.

This fraudulent activity has resulted in an estimated loss of R2bn to the city, funds that should have been allocated to improving our community, infrastructure and essential services. Instead, they have vanished. 

It will not come as a surprise that those employees deleted the arrears in the affected accounts after making the homeowners pay a fraction of the arrears to the employees, rather than into the municipality's coffers. With a proper investigation, all of why this happened and who paid whom how much will come to light. 

The seriousness of these issues is worsened by the assassination of Mpho Mafole, the Ekurhuleni group divisional head of corporate forensic audits, who was gunned down earlier this month on the R23. His death was reportedly linked to his investigations into these fraud schemes, raising serious concerns about the lengths to which those involved in this corruption will go to silence accountability.

Ekurhuleni’s situation illustrates a systemic failure that extends beyond one municipality. It is a clarion call for accountability, efficiency and stringent oversight in our public institutions.

It is a chilling reminder of the risks faced by those who dare to expose wrongdoing within an already compromised system.

We call for an immediate and comprehensive investigation into all these shenanigans at Ekurhuleni. Those responsible for the R5m payment, the deletions from the database, and the heinous act against Mafole must be held fully accountable.

Only through rigorous oversight and genuine commitment to reform can the citizens of Ekurhuleni begin to reclaim their municipality from the clutches of corruption.

Ghost payments and workers have long plagued our public service, manifesting in numerous detrimental ways.

In May, health professionals in Gauteng were forced to navigate months without their salaries while the department was busy with investigations into ghost workers that had persisted too long without resolution. The department of education suffered similar woes, where ghost workers had been a troubling issue for years. 

Last week, Gauteng finance MEC Lebogang Maile said the provincial government had lost about R300m to ghost workers. 

The financial losses due to these fraudulent schemes are staggering. The money squandered through such elaborate schemes could have been channelled towards initiatives to improve living conditions and enhance service delivery for citizens.

Municipalities, as the backbone of service delivery, must rise to the occasion and restore public confidence. However, the reality is that desperately needed services are falling to unprecedented lows, with residents routinely voicing their frustration over inadequate provisions.

Ekurhuleni’s situation illustrates a systemic failure that extends beyond one municipality. It is a clarion call for accountability, efficiency and stringent oversight in our public institutions.

We cannot afford the luxury of inaction while our municipalities operating on the ground struggle to deliver quality services and maintain the trust of the communities they are meant to serve. 

As citizens, we must insist on reforms and greater oversight to effectively eradicate the scourge of ghost payments and mismanagement within our public services. The time for complacency has long passed. It’s time to act decisively to protect our already limited and strained resources.