By Neelam Rahim

The Department of Public Service Administration has revealed that almost 300 public servants are moonlighting as municipal councillors. It said it was in the process of establishing whether applicable legal pre-scripts have been complied with. Of the 281 public service employees employed as municipal councillors, 30 public service employees are from national departments, and 251 are from provincial departments.

Radio Islam International discusses with the chief director of public administration ethics, integrity and disciplinary technical assistance at the Department of Public Service and Administration, Dr Salomon Hoogenraad-Vermaak.

According to Dr Salomon, section 36-1 of the public service act allows public service employees to stand as election candidates. This also means they must comply with the service code of conduct and other pre-scripts. That means they must take note of regulation 13K which prohibits them from participating in political activities in the workplace.

“If they want to be councillors, they cannot be full-time.”

He said the full-time councillor is the one that dedicates his full time and energy to the constituents. The part-time councillor has a government job and now acts part-time as a councillor. This is why the person must seek permission to perform other remunerative work.

“In terms of the directors issued in 2016 on other remunerative work, we guided specifically to say if you want to be a councillor or such. You need to acquire permission before you then start with that work.”

The permission must be obtained by completing forms pertaining to the ethics officer, who will screen for issues. After that, it gets signed off by the supervisor, who checks two things in terms of the public service act.

Dr Salomon tells Radio Islam that one is that the work will not impact performance, and the second is that it will not impact conduct.

Listen to the interview on Radio Islam’s podcast below.