Central database for public service disciplinary cases

Government has established a central database of disciplinary cases in the public service to speed up the resolution of these cases.

Speaking during the Governance and Administration Cluster briefing held in Pretoria recently, Minister of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) Collins Chabane said previously there was no central database where cases were managed.

Minister Chabane said DPSA was faced with cases where employees have been suspended for long periods without their cases being resolved.

To address this, DPSA started the process of building a database to collect information about all disciplinary cases, which lie in various provinces and departments.

In future, all cases in all spheres of government will be registered so that DPSA will be able to monitor their life cycle - who has been fired, who has been suspended and who has received a warning - on the system.

Added to this, Cabinet has approved the establishment of a pool of human resources practitioners and legal experts from various departments to assist in dealing with the backlog of cases.

The specialists are state employees and there will be no extra cost to the state in speedily resolving the outstanding cases.

The project will run for six months and will thereafter be reviewed.

DPSA has also developed sanctioning and precautionary suspension guidelines, which are to go before Cabinet for consideration.

The precautionary suspension guide is intended to ensure that employees are only suspended in appropriate circumstances.