This is according to an answer to a written question tabled in parliament. 

The Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) said the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal are the two provinces that have, in the current financial year, spent the most money on the suspensions of officials. 

This is despite the fact that the provincial government in the Free State reduced its cost from R12 million in the previous financial year, to R6 million in the 2020/21 financial year. 

The department said it conducted an investigation into the reasons why some government departments on provincial level are battling to finalise and/or conclude disciplinary cases within the stipulated time frame. 

The department found that several factors - including interference - were reported. Interference refers to cases where suspensions were used to neutralise opposition or employees from different camps or interest groups. 

The department says heads of departments and labour relations officials were scared to address this due to a fear of retaliation and a complexity of cases due to sector-specific challenges, such as in education and health. 

The DPSA intervened in some cases and the Public Service and Administration Minister held one on one meetings with departments to identify long overdue disciplinary cases and precautionary suspensions, to ascertain the reasons for backlogs and to pledge support for dealing with these cases.  

In January 2021, the Director-General (DG) of DPSA embarked on provincial meetings, where the issue of discipline management is addressed and compliance statistics are shared with departments. 

A decrease in suspensions and in the cost of precautionary suspensions, as well as an improvement in the capturing of cases on the Personnel Salary System (Persal), were noted at the end of March 2021. 

By the end of March 2021, provinces finalised 78% of their backlogs. 

The cost of precautionary suspensions for national departments stabilised around R20 million per quarter, and the cost for precautionary suspensions in provinces decreased to a new low level of almost R25 million less than what the year started with.

OFM News/Blaine Jones and Cathy Dlodlo