Ministers have been asked to hand over their passports, Business Day has learnt, marking the first step in the much-touted lifestyle audits promised by President Cyril Ramaphosa back in 2019.
The national executive and public servants have all been put on notice that if their lifestyle does not match their salary, they will face a full audit of their income, expenditure and assets.
Business Day reliably understands that some ministers have already handed over their passports for a “review” of their international trips by the State Security Agency.
“It is a low-hanging fruit, I guess. Getting us to explain how we pay for expensive holidays alone or with our family,” one minister said.
Another added: “Some of us are feeling uncomfortable.”
The plan to screen the lifestyles of public representatives — background checks on whether government officials are living lavishly beyond their means — is part of Ramaphosa’s pledge in 2019 to crack down on corruption, which became widespread under his predecessor, Jacob Zuma.
On Tuesday, the public service & administration department told MPs some departments and provinces had already begun doing lifestyle reviews on public servants as a first step to possible audits.
The audits for public servants, which are conducted as a proactive measure to identify possible corruption, come almost a year after the public service & administration department issued mandatory guidelines on how to go about it.
But the guidelines excluded cabinet members, who sources have previously said had been requested to declare only the countries they had visited during the past few years and whether they had materially benefited from international organisations or individuals.
Chana Pilane-Majake, deputy minister of public service & administration, said senior public servants had to be screened at least once a year.
“Lifestyle audits have to be conducted every year for senior management service members and every second year for non-senior management service managers. It is a continuous process,” Pilane-Majake said in parliament.
Pilane-Majake said the department’s ethics, integrity and disciplinary technical task unit provides support to ethics officers to ensure that departments properly implement the guide. “The public service is ready to continue with lifestyle audits, and the unit will continue supporting departments but also monitor and assess the effectiveness of the process and improve the process as we continue,” she said.
Indaba
Pilane-Majake’s remarks come as the department prepares to host a lifestyle audit indaba on Thursday and Friday.
The indaba will be conducted by the public administration ethics, integrity and disciplinary technical assistance unit chief directorate headed by Salomon Hoogenraad-Vermaak. The department said the workshop would look more deeply into the national strategy to build a capable and ethical state.
During his presentation, Hoogenraad-Vermaak told MPs that ethics officers were designated from existing staff in the department, and more permanent appointments were needed to professionalise the role.
“During the monitoring process, we also detected that there is a lack of knowledge among the ethics officers to determine when employees are living beyond their means.”
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