BY MBONO MDLULI
LOBAMBA – The issue of ghost employees is making Members of Parliament (MPs) uncomfortable, as it contributes to the ballooning wage bill for Government.
The MPs said this today when debating the 2023/24 annual performance of the Ministry of Public Service in the House of Assembly.
Nkhaba MP Hope Shiba said the issue of ghost employees meant that there was money paid where it was not supposed to be paid. Shiba pleaded with the Ministry to investigate the matter and do away with such.
Ntondozi MP Peter Ngwenya also asked the Ministry to deal with this problem to decrease the wage bill of Government. He said it was not good for civil servants to be engaged on contracts when they had reached retirement age.
Another issue that was seen to be a problem was age cheating. Nhlambeni MP Manzi Zwane said this was a problem because people were kept in the civil service when they were supposed to go home.
Shiselweni Region MP Lindiwe Mamba also expressed concerns that there were people who were re-employed even when they reached 60 years.
Lobamba Lomdzala MP Marwick Khumalo wanted to know what happened to the Enhanced Voluntary Early Retirement Scheme (EVERS). Khumalo said this scheme was introduced in order to allow civil servants to retire early so that the wage bill could be decreased.
Khumalo further stated that there was once a Joint Sitting that intended to lower the retirement age from 60 to 55 years. However, politics being a dirty game, that never happened.
In response, Minister for Public Service Mabulala Maseko said they were about to finish getting rid of ghost employees. He said they had done so in all the other Ministries, but what was left was the Ministry of Education and Training.
Minister Maseko said the Ministry of Education and Training had a lot of workers who needed to be probed yet the Ministry of Public Service had a small number of workers.
