The public are sick and tired of poor service from the Unemployment Insurance Fund.

The human resource department of the Department of Employment and Labour have once again kept the Commissioner on full pay on suspension without any action from the Department.

It is easy for the Department to keep the commissioner on full pay whilst not being productive because this is money from the income tax paying workers of South Africa.

It doesn’t seem to bother the departmental officials and even the Minister that this is an enormous wastage.

There has been a very loud silence from the Ministry as to what has transpired.

Clearly, the Department is showing its disdain to the tax payers of South Africa.

Furthermore, it is a disgrace when an individual who might have done wrong is just kept at home in the dark. No one should be treated this way.

If an employer has received information serious enough to lead to a suspension then it should not take months and months to investigate and to implement a disciplinary enquiry.

If the investigation over a few weeks has come to nought then it would be incumbent upon the employer to apologise to the individual for suspending them and to bring them back so they can perform their tasks for which they are being paid.

This example of the UIF Commissioner is but just one example within the government. This is truly wasteful expenditure.

It is about time that we hold the human resource department responsible for the losses incurred in exercises of this nature.

We have recently seen a court case where the judge has held civil servants liable for this type of wasteful expenditure.

We need to applaud the judge in that case and we also need to urge our judiciary to be alerted to civil servants who play fast and loose with public money.

The congress of South African trade unions have coupled the suspension of the UIF Commissioner, Teboho Maruping with the fact that thousands of workers when applying for their funds from the UIF have experienced challenges.

It takes a lot for Cosatu to start challenging the Department of Employment and Labour.

They went further and said, “if we are to ensure the UIF is cleansed of the cancers of corruption, then the President, Mr Cyril Ramaphosa, must issue a proclamation mandating the special investigating unit to investigate the entire fund and in particular its unlisted investments.”

It is about time that our not so new Minister Meth, takes some control of her department and does not allow the ongoing disaster of suspending employees on full pay with no action to either dismiss them or bring them back.

It is incumbent upon every single minister in the Government of National Unity to have a look at wastage and the reasons for non-delivery.

It is often said “Rot begins from the top”.

The Ministers and the Deputy Ministers need to ensure that their senior staff take responsibility for discipline. Consequence management is where it all starts and ends.

* Michael Bagraim.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.

Cape Argus

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