Disciplinary cases to be centralised on database

Minister of Public Service and Administration Collins Chabane says government will establish a central database of all employees who have been suspended or are being investigated for alleged fraud, corruption or other illegal acts. Image: GCIS

Speaking during the Governance and Administration Cluster briefing in Pretoria, Minister of Public Service and Administration Collins Chabane said disciplinary cases were the responsibility of various national and provincial departments and as such previously there was no central database to manage cases.

Chabane said the department was faced with cases where employees were suspended for long periods without their cases being resolved.

Therefore the department had undertaken to create a database and collect information about all disciplinary cases which lie in various provinces and departments.

In future, all cases in all spheres of government will be registered so the department is able to monitor them and see who has been fired, who has been suspended and who has received a warning. This information will be maintained on the system.

Added to this, Cabinet has a team of human resources practitioners and legal experts from various departments to assist in dealing with the backlog of cases.

The specialists are state employees and there will be no extra cost to the state in resolving any outstanding cases. The project will run for six months and and then be reviewed.

The DPSA has also developed sanctioning and precautionary suspension guidelines which are to go before Cabinet for consideration. This precautionary suspension guide is intended to ensure that employees are suspended in appropriate circumstances.