The Gauteng Department of Health says through its employee verification campaign called Ziveze, it has halted salaries of more than 60 unconfirmed workers.
The initiative, which was launched back in October 2024, seeks to confirm a total of 85 642 employees who are registered on the department’s payroll.
“As of 25 February 2025, salaries have been frozen for 66 employees who remain unverified, excluding pending cases.
All employees have been urged to physically verify themselves by visiting their facility’s Human Resources (HR) office, or any designated verification site,” said the department spokesperson, Motalatale Modiba.
According to the department, fraudulent payments to non-existing workers contribute to wasteful expenditure.
“Ghost employees contribute to a high cost of fraudulent employee payments in organisations globally.
The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners released the 12th edition of their report titled Occupational Fraud 2022: A Report to the Nations, in this report they found that ghost employees were one of the most prevalent types of occupational fraud and that payroll fraud amounted to 8% of reported cases,” explained Modiba.
Furthermore, Modiba stated that due to limited resources, the department is unable to pay salaries to unofficial employees.
In addition, during phase one of the Ziveze campaign which concluded on the 6th of December 2024, 31 345 employees were successfully verified.
A remaining number of 23 789 workers are yet to be verified and have been given until the 31st of March 2025, to subject themselves to the process.
Modiba warned that failure to do so, will result in the permanent removal of the workers from the payroll and criminal charges laid against them.
