For five years, two sick Bhisho civil servants have been sitting at home drawing a salary.
The co-operative governance and traditional affairs and transport department officials join about 370 others, mostly from the education and health departments, who have been on prolonged sick leave – some for years – costing the Eastern Cape government R121.6m over five years.
The shocking details are contained in a report from the office of the premier, signed by acting premier Pumza Dyantyi, in response to questions from DA MPL Bobby Stevenson.
The report highlights that:
● Fifty health officials have been on sick leave for a year, six for six months, 12 for two years, two for three years and one has been away from work for four years;
● Of the staff employed by the department of education, 95 have been on sick leave for three months, 77 for six months, 64 for a year, 19 for two years and two for three years;
● Two employees are on sick leave at the co-operative governance department, one for six months and another for five years;
● Three employees from the department of rural development and agrarian reform have been on sick leave for three months and one for two years;
● Ten department of social development staff members have been on sick leave for three months, five for six months and one for two years;
● At the department of transport, one person has been on sick leave for three months, three people for six months, one for a year and another for five years;
● Three staff are on sick leave from the department of public works, two for three months and one for six months;
● Two department of economic development, environmental affairs and tourism employees have been on sick leave for six months and two for one year; and
● Four staff members from the department of human settlements have been on sick leave for six months.
Dyantyi blamed the sick leave problem on poor management by department heads.
She said there was “a general lack of understanding” of how to implement and manage the government’s policies on incapacity leave and illhealth retirement.
Also, there was no central co-ordination across the administration as each department handled its own cases.
“These cases are not known as the relevant supervisors are not acting on absenteeism for long periods of time, and employees are not submitting applications for incapacity leave and ill-health retirements.
“Instead, [they] just stay at home for as long as they wish without any discipline.”
She said applications for extended sick leave were delayed due to the late submission of application forms because absenteeism was not managed.
She attributed the human resources department’s failure to deal with the problem to pending court or disciplinary cases and lack of integration between human resources, employment relations and legal services with respect to the policy on incapacity leave and ill-health retirement cases.
Transport department spokesperson Khuselwa Rantjie said the employee on extended leave for five years was a driver whose legs had been amputated due to ill health.
Rantjie said the department was assisting the driver to follow the relevant application processes, which might lead to ill-health retirement.
“The department is tightening reporting lines so that, on a monthly basis, districts and business units report on cases of prolonged leave of absence due to ill-health.
“This is to afford the accounting officer an opportunity to access the case and make a determination in line with the policy provisions.”
Co-operative governance spokesperson Mamkeli Ngam said the employee who was on leave for five years was a community development worker in the Chris Hani district municipality.
“He has been receiving the necessary support from our wellness programme and as a result he will be reskilled to be productive in his responsibilities,” Ngam said.
Stevenson said the province needed decisive leadership to deal with the prolonged sick leave problem because it had cost the province millions.
“We need warm bodies at work, not bodies languishing in warm beds,” he said.
“The money spent on these sick individuals could have been used to build 810 RDP houses.”
Nehawu provincial secretary Miki Jaceni accused the health department of being lax when it came to managing the high levels of sick leave.
Jaceni said there were staff members who wanted to be medically boarded, as recommended by their private doctors, but the department had prolonged a number of cases.
“The employer must be the one to account as to why the situation took as long as it did.
“There are procedures to follow – either speed up [ill-health retirement] or change the working conditions.
“You can’t leave a situation for four years because that means something is wrong with you as an employer.”
Provincial health spokesperson Lwandile Sicwetsha said the workers on sick leave were still being paid as their applications for incapacity leave had been approved.
Sicwetsha said the department had established multidisciplinary teams at district level to conduct interviews and assess the workers’ status.
“Employee wellness [staff] also visit the officials at home to assess and make a recommendation for support or approval by the superintendentgeneral for ill-health retirement or a return to normal duties or lighter duties,” he said.
SA Democratic Teachers Union provincial secretary Chris Mdingi accused the education department of using a blanket approach when dealing with sick leave.
“Time and again we reprimand the department for using a blanket approach when dealing with such cases to an extent of undermining the process that has to be observed when one is on sick leave.
“There are some people who are bedridden, but not all of them are in that condition, and as the union we have said have a better approach and be sensitive to each and every case because sicknesses differ from one person to another.”
Education department spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima did not respond to questions. The Eastern Cape government is struggling to strike a balance between the cost of staff and actual service delivery with the ratio, as a percentage, standing at an astonishing 63/37.
Finance MEC Oscar Mabuyane made the revelation as he tabled his mid-term budget statement in Bhisho on Thursday.
Mabuyane said the R30bn wage bill shortfall, as announced by finance minister Tito Mboweni, meant that ambitious projects in the Eastern Cape would have to be shelved.
“We must now find money from our reserves to accommodate a share of the R30bn shortfall,” Mabuyane said.
“National Treasury has said this is our baby, therefore we must carry it on our backs.
“This is going to put further pressure on our fiscus and it also means we must shelve some of our ambitious plans.”
Mabuyane said his department had not yet identified which mega projects would have to be delayed. In October, Mboweni announced that the national and provincial government departments would have to shoulder an unscheduled R30.2bn wage bill caused by above-inflation salary increases for civil servants.
Mabuyane said striking a balance between the cost of employees and service delivery was in the interest of the province with respect to economic development.
“This matter is an albatross on service delivery and, more importantly, economic development,” he said.
Speaking in the Eastern Cape Legislature, Mabuyane said the province was further faced with losing R5.9bn over the next three financial years as a result of people leaving in pursuit of greener pastures.
He said, however, that discussions were under way to have the equitable share formula – which relies heavily on the number of people who leave a province – reviewed.
“At a national level we are robustly advocating for the review of the equitable share formula, which relies heavily on the outward migration of people from one province to another in the allocation of resources,” he said.
“We are of the view that this formula should be changed as it has a stranglehold on service delivery in rural provinces such as ours.”
He admitted that there were areas where money meant for service delivery had not been spent, while in others, money had been spent but there was nothing of value to show for it.
Other highlights in the midterm budget were:
● R104m to education to build hostels;
● R281m for service providers that have completed work;
● R126m to the department of transport;
● R20m for farmers affected by the drought;
● R50m to the Eastern Cape Development Corporation;
● R325m for the supply of medicines, food and implants; and
● R2.8m for the coronation of King Ndlovuyezwe Ndamase and King Zanozuko Sigcau.
Mabuyane said his department would be cutting back on catering, overnight travel and accommodation as well as subsistence allowances, wherever possible.
“We are not going to hire for the sake of hiring.
“And if you don’t need to have food, we will cut back on that,” he said.
“And if someone doesn’t need to spend the night and someone has to travel to Joburg, you don’t have to spend the night.”
DA MPL Bobby Stevenson said while the province was on a slippery slope of bad governance, he welcomed the allocations to the health and education departments.
“If you want people to stay in this province, you need to fix the education system, you need to fix the roads and make sure that there is a regular supply of electricity and water.
“There is basic infrastructure that you need as a province and if you don’t create it, you have a problem,” he said.