Cape Town – The National Treasury has found that more than 2 000 municipal officials have been trading in business with the state over the past three years although there is law criminalising such a conduct.
This was revealed by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana in reply to a written parliamentary question from EFF MP Khanya Ceza.
Ceza enquired about the number of municipal employees who have been reported to his department to have conducted business with the state in the past three financial years.
He also asked whether disciplinary action has been taken against the affected employees.
In 2016, the Public Administration Management Act was agreed to and provided for the criminalisation of employees conducting business with the State.
The legislation extended the prohibition on public service employees from conducting business with any organ of state to political advisers, but also to the public administration.
Section 8 of the act came into effected in April 2019 when President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a proclamation to that effect.
In his written reply, Godongwana said the National Treasury did not have information on the number of municipal employees doing business with the state, as such cases were not reported to his department.
He, however, said the National Treasury has data from the central supplier database, which has been compared to payments data, and the Basic Accounting System (BAS), from national and provincial departments.
Godongwana said the 1 086 municipal employees were linked to businesses that have been paid through BAS by national or provincial departments in 2019/20.
He also said a total of 890 municipal employees were linked tp conducting business with the state in 2020/21.
A further 657 municipal employees were linked to businesses that have been paid through BAS in 2021/22.
“It must be noted that the data is based purely on identity number matches and has not been interrogated further to ascertain whether there is any wrongdoing,” Godongwana said.
