The director of Director of Public Service Management (DPSM) Directorate Ruth Maphorisa has told the ongoing Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) session that unlike in the past, the government has no ghost employees.
The positive trend, according to Maphorisa was brought upon by a new human resource system called Oracle which disallows ghosts’ employees.
In 2014 a number of government ministries launched internal investigations after false names were discovered on their payroll. A growing number of “ghost workers” turned up on the government payroll as the government enclave started rolling out the new Oracle human resource management system.
By mid 2014, DPSM said that a total of 52 ghost workers had been discovered on the government payroll, 21 of whom were at the Ministry of Health. However two years down the line, DPSM says ghost employees have since been dealt with.
At the time of roll out, the DPSM said Oracle system will enable better management of the government establishment of one employee one post and it also comes with an effective tool to control and monitor the establishment as it allows only one employee to occupy one post, and ultimately will not pay anyone who is not attached to an established post. The system has in built control measures to guard against anomalies and can be easily monitored as it is computerised.
Meanwhile Maphorisa admitted to the PAC that the Government says it is still challenged with the withholding tax accounts in making progress in managing income tax of public service.
“The monies were collected over the years and not fully remitted to Botswana Unified Revenue Services (BURS). DPSM has since paid what needed to be paid to BURS and made corrections of transactions by way of adjustments where necessary.”
Maphorisa said as a result, the figures in the account continue to represent an offset between the amounts of debits against the credits.
“We will continue to work on old balances until they are fully resolved while ensuring that current transactions do not accumulate out of control,” said Maphorisa.
