Sameera Casmod | sameerac@radioislam.co.za
19 June 2025 | 11:30 a.m. CAT
2-minute read

Image: Daily Maverick Illustrative image | Sources: Ghost employee. (Photo: iStock) | Office block. (Photo: Waldo Swiegers / Bloomberg via Getty Images) | South African banknotes. (Photo: Waldo Swiegers / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

In a nutshell:

• Ghost employees are fraudulently added to government payrolls by syndicates operating within state departments.
• The practice is widespread, with isolated audits already revealing tens of millions lost in salaries to non-existent workers.
• The national government is now developing a standardised system to audit and eliminate ghost employees across all spheres of the public sector.

A nationwide audit has been launched to expose a vast network of ghost employees embedded in South Africa’s public service, as mafia-style corruption syndicates siphon millions in taxpayer funds.

The South African government is scrambling to clamp down on a growing crisis of “ghost employees” fraudulently embedded in state payrolls. In a coordinated, mafia-style operation, syndicates within the public sector have infiltrated administrative systems to insert non-existent workers—raking in millions in public funds.

The alarm was raised following a series of targeted audits that exposed how systemic and organised the looting has become. Among the most shocking revelations: the Gauteng Department of Health allegedly paid R6,4 million to 230 ghost workers, while the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) reportedly spent R20 million a year on salaries for 1 000 individuals who were never seen at work.

In an interview with Radio Islam International, Jan de Villiers, Chairperson of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration, confirmed the extent of the problem.

“Where ghost audits have now been done almost haphazardly… they found ghost employee salaries up to R20 million a month in the system,” said de Villiers. “If you can just take those as samples, that gives us a clear indication that we think the practice of ghost employees on the government payroll is widespread.”

The fraud is not merely opportunistic but structurally organised. According to de Villiers, inserting a ghost employee onto the payroll system requires internal collusion.

“You need a minimum of three government employees to collude, to work together to put someone on the payroll system,” he explained. “It takes a network of corrupt officials to load these ghost employees… and also maintain the network.”

Ghost employees—sometimes created with false identities or duplicate credentials—receive salaries without ever reporting for duty. These funds are then redirected by insiders exploiting the system. The practice, authorities say, long predates the COVID-19 era but escalated in the aftermath, as remote work blurred oversight mechanisms.

In Mpumalanga, a separate audit uncovered R6,5 million in fraudulent salaries within the Department of Education. These cases, experts warn, are not isolated but symptomatic of a wider rot.

The urgency of reform was echoed by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana and President Cyril Ramaphosa, who are backing a standardised national audit. The Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) has been tasked with creating and implementing a uniform system to detect, verify, and eliminate ghost employees across all tiers of government, including local municipalities and state-owned entities.

De Villiers concluded: “It is very similar to organised crime, a syndicate inside the state… to siphon that money into your own pockets.”

The nationwide audit will require all public sector employees to present themselves to verify their employment. However, the cost, timeline, and practical challenges of such an exercise remain unclear. What is certain is that South Africans can no longer afford the price of administrative silence.

Listen to the full interview on Sabaahul Muslim with Moulana Sulaimaan Ravat.