Note to Broadcasters: Please find the attached soundbites in English and Afrikaans by Wolfgang Wallhorn.
The DA in the North West is alarmed by the material irregularity uncovered by the Auditor General (AG) in the Department of Education’s payroll system, a major financial scandal that exposes deep-rooted failures in internal controls, financial oversight, and consequence management.
The AG’s findings uncover a staff debt book of more than R100-million, which includes payments to individuals who had resigned, retired, or passed away. Such payments could not have occurred without a continuous breakdown in payroll verification, HR controls, and supervisory oversight. These incidents are not isolated errors; they represent a systemic governance collapse that placed public funds at serious risk.
While the Department has now introduced the Automated Leave and Termination Management System (ALTMS) to improve termination tracking and prevent future overpayments, the DA stresses that systems alone do not remediate accountability failures. ALTMS will have to be taken through stringent live tests to assess effectiveness in practice to ensure similar incidents cannot occur again.
Equally concerning is the continued lack of clarity around disciplinary and consequence management processes. The public deserves clarity as to who authorised these payments, who disregarded warning signs, and what actions have been taken against responsible officials. Without visible and credible disciplinary outcomes, any reform measures risk being meaningless.
The DA therefore insists that the Department submit regular, detailed progress reports to the Portfolio Committee covering investigations, recovery of funds, disciplinary proceedings, and system control improvements. These reports will determine the next oversight steps.
The residents of North West deserve assurance that public money is protected, that negligence is punished, and that this payroll scandal is resolved with full transparency and accountability. The DA will continue to pursue this matter until every responsible party is identified and every recoverable rand is accounted for.