R61 million spent on managers without performance agreements in Gauteng Premier's office

26 October 2022

The Public Service Commission has denounced the payment of R61.6 million to senior managers in the Gauteng Premier’s Office whose performance was not assessed because they do not have performance contracts.

According to a PSC presentation that was tabled at yesterday’s meeting of the Gauteng Legislature’s Oversight Committee on the Premier’s Office and Legislature (OCPOL), this money was paid to 10 senior managers in the past two years.

Comments by the PSC include the following:

- The PSC denounces non-compliance with the Public Service Regulations, particularly by the senior managers in respect of not finalising their performance agreements and non-assessment of their actual performance.

- This conduct by the senior managers promotes lack of accountability and consequence management; as well as lack of sound governance in the department.

- Senior managers are the custodian of state resources and supervisors to the other officials in the department. Senior managers cannot effectively and efficiently look after the state resources, if they are not contractually obligated to do so.

- The department spent a total of R 61 606 026paying salaries of the senior managers who were not held accountable for their performance, in the past two financial years

This is a huge amount of money spent on staff who probably do nothing to justify annual salaries that range from R1 million to R2 million.

Performance agreements with senior managers are supposed to be concluded by 31 May each year and assessed for each performance cycle. But one-third of the senior managers in the Premier’s Office did not have performance agreements.

This reflects poorly on former Premier David Makhura. I suspect these managers were cadre deployments to keep factions in the ANC happy.

Premier Panyaza Lesufi is likely to add his own buddies to his office at the expense of the taxpayer.

The DA strongly opposes cadre deployment that is the ruin of our public service, which needs competent people who can do what they are paid to do.

Gauteng’s potential is blighted by a bloated and incompetent provincial government that will only improve when the ANC is voted out.

Issued by Jack Bloom, DA Member, Oversight Committee on the Premier’s Office and Legislature (OCPOL), 26 October 2022