NOXOLO KIVIET
HUNDREDS of Eastern Cape department of health employees will be demoted and forced to pay back more than R412-million after they were “overpaid” six years ago.
This is as a result of an agreement enforced by the Labour Court in Port Elizabeth on Wednesday.
Deductions will begin at the end of March but it will take the department more than 300 years to recover the full debt.
Known as human resource operating project team (HROPT) payments, civil servants will see R100 deducted from their monthly salaries to reimburse the department.
The agreement states that if an employee is fired or resigns they will still be obligated to pay back the full debt.
The payments were made to employees from the erstwhile Ciskei and Transkei homelands when their salaries and jobs were harmonised in 1994.
Health department superintendent- general Siva Pillay said yesterday the court order was not about recovering old debts but stopping future payments.
“Technically it is a write-off but we are not interested in recovering the money. We want to put a stop to the bleeding,” he said.
When the court order kicks in the department will save about R9-million a month, said Pillay.
After the payments were finally made between 2006 and 2009, the provincial government ordered an audit which found R683-million was irregularly paid to 4814 civil servants during the three-year period.
Audit firm Grant Thornton found only R26-million should have been paid and the findings revealed 1086 employees from the department of health were allegedly promoted irregularly.
When the audit was finalised, the provincial executive – led by Premier Noxolo Kiviet – ordered demotions and salary deductions from October 2010.
However, only the department of health acted on Kiviet’s decision to recover their share of the R657-million in payments made to employees across the 11 provincial departments.
Pillay said the recovery figure for the whole province had now ballooned to well over R1-billion since the audit findings were released.
“We could not carry on overpaying people. It was bleeding us dry.”
The other provincial departments have still not challenged the “overpaid” workers .
According to the settlement agreement, health officials who can prove before the end of March, through an arbitrator, they were promoted lawfully will not be forced to reimburse the department.
“We had to put a stop to the payments because of the financial position in the department. The money is needed elsewhere and we could not carry on like this,” said Pillay.
The court agreement was signed between the department of health and the four unions, who originally opposed the deductions and demotions.
Employees to be demoted include senior administrative officers on post level 8 – earning about R170000 a year – who will be demoted to level 7 and will now earn roughly R140000 a year.
In March last year, the National Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) won an interim order interdicting the department from deducting the amounts from the salaries or demoting the 1086 employees .
Court papers cited Nehawu, the Public Servants’ Association of South Africa, Health and Other Service Personnel Trade Union of South Africa and Public Allied Workers’ Union of South Africa as applicants in the interim interdict.
MEC of Health Sicelo Gbobana, Kiviet and Pillay were listed as respondents.
The Labour Court granted the union the interim order and also ordered the reversal of R9-million in salary deductions the department of health had already made the month before. Yesterday’s agreement discharged the interim order.
Nehawu’s provincial chairman, Xolani Malamlela said: “It was not a victory for anyone but all parties came to an understanding,” he said.
Malamlela said the unions would investigate the situation of each of the alleged 1086 officials listed in the auditor’s findings.
The parties have until March 19 to oppose the order. — michaelk@dispatch.co.za
Article source: http://www.dispatch.co.za/news/article/2900
