Latest news with #Persal
The Citizen
5 days ago
- Business
- The Citizen
Here's how much government paid capped, sick leave to employees in the public service
Capped leave is expected to grow in costs. A South African flag flies against a backdrop of flowering jacaranda trees outside the Rosebank police station. Picture: Michel Bega/The Citizen The cost and broader impact of leave taken by public service employees over a four-year period have come under scrutiny. Officials from the Department of Public Service and Administration, alongside the Public Service Commission (PSC), presented these findings to Parliament during a meeting on Wednesday. PSC commissioner Vusumuzi Mavuso explained to the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration that data was collected from the Personnel and Salary Administration System (Persal) for the period between 2020 and 2023. ALSO READ: How many ghost workers are there in government? This data focused on various types of leave, including study and sick leave. Information gathered included the gender, age, and salary levels of personnel from all national and provincial departments, with the exception of the Department of Defence and the State Security Agency (SSA). 'It was quite necessary to collect the data and making sure that we have a sense as to what is happening within the public service, specifically looking into sick and study leave from Persal and to establish whether there is any excessive utilisation of such leave,' Mavuso told MPs. Capped leave in public service PSC Director of Employment Management, Renel Singh, reported that as of December 2023, the government spent R16 billion on 9.2 million days of capped leave. This applied to 189 039 employees out of a total of 1 387 391 in the public service, with about 122 000 of them from the education and health sectors. Public sector employees appointed before 1 July 2000 retained their capped leave – pre-2000 audited leave converted to working days – which is only paid out in the event of death, retirement, or medical boarding. READ MORE: Will review of public sector doctors working in private hospitals lead to better healthcare or brain drain? Singh said capped leave is expected to grow in costs. 'The costs go up on the basis of cost-of-living adjustments and factors such as promotions and notch upgrades.' 'Capped leave is a moving target, and it is a contingent liability for the state. It is something that the state has to pay to the public servant who chooses to retire,' she said on Wednesday. Alongside the anticipated future payout costs, there are growing concerns about the potential loss of experienced personnel from the public service sector. 'The health sector has 26 524 officials who have capped leave, and education has 96 096 people who have capped leave, and that raises future concerns in terms of the skills deficit that we may encounter.' Watch the meeting below: PSC recommendations on capped leave Given that capped leave is a 'quite expensive cost' for government, the PSC made several recommendations. Among these was for the National Treasury to perform a detailed cost-based analysis of expected payouts over the next five to ten years. 'There has to be recommendations that need to be made by the National Treasury together with the Department of Public Service and Administration specifically in relation to the negotiation of this particular practice of leave to ascertain what the future costs would be.' 'And it would be feasible for the state to actually incur that cost now or wait for people to exit the system, which could considerably be a higher cost in the future,' Singh explained. READ MORE: Corruption 'not government's responsibility alone' but taxpayers fork out millions for suspensions Another proposal involves allowing employees to convert capped leave into extra pension benefits, in line with Government Employee Pension Fund (GEPF) rules. 'The GEPF offers the option to purchase additional pension and will result in improved retirement benefits.' This would require the Department of Public Service, the GEPF, and the Government Pensions Administration Agency (GPAA) to explore the option from a cost-benefit perspective. The PSC also urged the department to initiate human resource planning exercises to prepare for the loss of experienced staff due to retirement. Sick leave for public service employees Singh presented data showing that the number of public service employees taking sick leave in national departments ranged from 224 649 to 266 445 over the four-year period. In provincial departments, the range was between 14 041 and 145 301. 'In 2022, there was a spike, but it was the new sick leave cycle, which is the reloading of the 36 days of sick leave over a three-year period,' she remarked. READ MORE: Almost 90% of foreign government employees in health and education sectors, says DPSA Between 2020 and 2023, public servants took between 5.4 million and 7.6 million days of sick leave, with a peak in 2022. The cost of this leave rose from R8 billion in 2020 to R11.5 billion in 2022, before slightly dropping to R10.1 billion in 2023. 'When we look at costs, we are looking at it from a perspective of employees not being in the office. They are not operating. They are getting paid their salaries, but they are not actually in office.' Incapacity leave Temporary incapacity leave peaked in 2021, with 43 878 employees taking 1.4 million days of leave. This figure decreased in 2022 but rose again in 2023 to 1.3 million days. The cost reached R2.38 billion in 2023. 'Temporary incapacity leave is employee-initiated,' Singh told the committee. In terms of permanent incapacity leave, which is employer initiated, the police had the highest number of cases, with 696 between 2020 and 2023. The highest cost of permanent incapacity leave for all government employees was R31.18 million in 2020. 'The costs were relatively far lower than your temporary incapacity leave.' To address the escalating costs and potential misuse of sick leave, the PSC suggested annual audits by all government departments to identify instances of excessive use and possible misuse by employees. Departments should also strictly monitor medical certificate submissions to verify sick leave applications. Finally, the PSC recommended that the Department of Public Service consider placing a cap on temporary incapacity leave. NOW READ: Parliamentary 'ghostbusters' target Casper – the unfriendly public service ghost
IOL News
24-05-2025
- Business
- IOL News
National Treasury set to unveil significant spending reviews to Cabinet
National Treasury director-general Duncan Pieterse says work on spending reviews has just started, along with the work around conditional grants review in infrastructure and the ghost worker audit. Image: Supplied National Treasury director-general Duncan Pieterse said the work to be done by his department on spending reviews will soon be presented before the Cabinet. Pieterse said there were historical spending reviews and that they have embarked on a new wave of them. 'Some of the new spending reviews are complete, like the work on active labour market programmes and public employment, and that we will be tabling to Cabinet and elsewhere soon,' he said. He made the statement along with Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana and the National Treasury team unpacking the 2025/26 Budget on Friday. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ In his Budget speech, Godongwana said the National Treasury has undertaken expenditure reviews looking at more than R300 billion in the government's spending since 2013 to identify duplications, waste, and inefficiencies. Pieterse said some of the work on spending reviews has just started, along with the work around the conditional grants review in infrastructure and the ghost worker audit. 'We intend to take this work and make it part of the budget process and embed it there, and of course, the committee should, when it engages with us on a quarterly basis, ask us about the outcomes there.' He also said they are starting with national and provincial departments for the ghost worker audit because that is the area where they have the best data to effect piloting work there. 'Nothing stops us from extending it to entities as we gather that data, but that is going to be a little bit more difficult in exercise because now we are moving beyond Persal, which is where all the data on personnel sits, to individual data sets,' he said. Godongwana had a data-driven approach to detect payroll irregularities and will replace the more costly method of using censuses. 'This initiative will cross-reference administrative data sets to identify ghost workers and other anomalies across government departments.' In its presentation to the joint committee on Friday, the National Treasury said it planned to conclude the full review of the 2026 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and roll out reforms from the Budget process review study. It also said it will strengthen the consultation channels in the context of the Government of National Unity framework, including empowering the Cabinet to grapple with the complexity of trade-offs and macro fiscal stability, as well as to empower government-wide technical committees to be responsive to the GNU priorities. It added that it will upgrade data, IT, and capital-budget systems to embed evidence-based decisions across the government. DA spokesperson for finance, Mark Burke, wanted to know the powers and timelines of the spending reviews. 'I would like to understand what the force of its findings will be. Will they be recommendations or enforceable?' he asked. 'While we are looking at that, some of the expenditure items that we will no doubt identify in there will require legislative changes. I am hoping the minister can give us a bit more information on our agreed omnibus bill to effect those changes and whether he's got a timeline on the introduction of that legislation.' ActionSA MP Alan Beesley said it would be great if the spending review processes were transparent. 'It is an issue that we have, as ActionSA, been saying, it must start with the Cabinet. We have got a bloated Cabinet to live the life of luxury, and we have to live by example. We can't tell other people to tighten their belts when the Cabinet's belt is getting looser, so I think the first spending review must be with the Cabinet,' Beesley said. Mmusi Maimane, the Standing Committee of Appropriations chairperson and BOSA leader, said while he accepted the principle of spending reviews, it would be a miss if it did not include parliamentary input upfront or post factor. 'When we do spending reviews, there are certain things to be taken into account,' he said. Deputy Minister David Masondo said they would look at spending reviews to make sure that it was not enough just to raise revenue. 'We need to be looking at how we are spending that money in the context of making sure that there are efficiencies in our spending. I think the issue around the timelines on the spending reviews and making sure that they are enforceable, it is something that we will have to go back and do,' Masondo said.
