PRASA saves R200million after identifying ghost employees

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Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) says they have managed to save the agency about R 200million following the identification of ghost workers who have been in agency’s payroll for years.

This was confirmed by Roads and Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula during media briefing on Monday in Johannesburg.

Minister Mbalula, said Project Ziveze was launched 10 months ago to verify all PRASA employees, after material irregularities were uncovered within PRASA’s information and communications technology (ICT) systems, Human Capital Management (HCM), and payroll. 

The preliminary investigations there were launched prior, were not  able to verify 1 480 employees while 1 159 resigned during the process.

The project’s was to also find out whether proper channels were being followed or not in employing foreign nationals.

Mbalula said they are on the mission to making sure that the agency is free of any corruption and that all those responsible for the collapsing of the agency will face the full might of the law.

During Phase 1 of the project all employees were invited on a voluntary basis to come forward to be verified with copies of their ID Documents, qualifications and the Human Capital Management (HCM) Employee Data forms.

“During this phase, out of the 17 268 recorded employees on PRASA’s payroll system, 14 268 employees presented themselves for verification. During the same period, 1 159 employees resigned. Failure by 3 000 employees to come forward for physical verification led to suspicions that there could be a number of ghost employees at PRASA,” Mbalula said.

PRASA then commissioned the services of an independent service provider to establish if these were indeed ghost employees, and to identify weaknesses in the PRASA system as well as identifying culpable officials who may have colluded with unscrupulous people to create ghost employees where this was found to be the case. 

The investigation was conducted with the support of the Department of Home Affairs, the South African Revenue Service (SARS), Umalusi, and the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA).

The investigation flagged 2 143 employees, who were then grouped according to the following categories:

• Possible ghost employees who could not be physically verified.
• Employees masquerading as somebody else, thus possible identity theft.  
• Fraudulent qualifications submitted.
• Employees with serious criminal offences

“The preliminary investigation revealed that 1 480 employees either cannot be physically verified and their files or documentation are non-existent, while others resigned without the necessary supporting documentation at the start of the project. The investigation also revealed a number of instances where ID photos do not match the face of employees. This has triggered further investigations,” Mbalula said.

He added that among many other things that were revealed by the investigations,  they found that there was improper employee data capturing and weaknesses in the agency’s ICT system which created loopholes big enough to create a playground for corrupt activities.