While MPs have welcomed the implementation of the lifestyle audits in government departments, they have decried the lack of uniformity in how the audits are conducted.
Five years after lifestyle audits became compulsory in the public service to crack down on corruption, departments are still developing mechanisms to conduct the audits.
While the Department of Public Service and Administration introduced the framework to conduct the audits, government departments have taken different approaches, raising concern among MPs.
This emerged when six national government departments - Public Works and Infrastructure, Health, Agriculture, Human Settlements, Home Affairs and Water and Sanitation - presented progress on their implementation of the audits to the Public Service and Administration Portfolio Committee yesterday.
While some departments are relying on the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to conduct their audits, others use “ethics officers” or “ethics champions”, who are senior managers in their departments, to drive the process of declarations so that they can identify employees who need to be investigated.
“It's good that the departments are taking it seriously. It's good that they are developing the mechanisms to get lifestyle audits done, but what is quite clear for me is that we don't have enough uniformity in the methods. We should work towards a more uniform approach throughout all the departments," said Jan de Villiers, chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration.
“There isn't a specific process. What has now happened and evolved out of that situation; some departments have started using external services like the SIU to assist them with lifestyle audits, and even if you go to the provinces, the province of the Western Cape used an external auditing firm to do their lifestyle audits,” said De Villiers.
MPs were also concerned about the objectivity of internal managers and questioned whether they had the necessary authority to drive the process.
De Villiers said Parliament will only be relieved when it starts seeing people being sent to jail for corruption.
“At the end of the day, it's all good and well that we are identifying people and that processes are being developed, but those processes are only worth the money and the time being spent on them when they lead to jail time. We are cautiously optimistic of the progress, but the proof will be in the pudding, the pudding being people going to jail."
MPs heard that departments prioritised the lifestyle audits of executive and senior managers and in most cases, they were compliant.
Departments reported a handful of cases where officials chose to resign rather than be audited. In such cases, the department would freeze the affected officials’ pensions until the audit has been completed.
"Those that we have found that are red flags as they resign, (they are) referred to legal as well as HR, where we also freeze the pensions until the process is fully concluded," said Public Works and Infrastructure's Lwazi Mahlangu.
In a few other cases, audits uncovered undeclared business interests with the state, properties and money-lending operations.
Home Affairs’ Acting Deputy Director-General for human resources, Charlotte Mocke, revealed that her department adopted a policy that its employees should not conduct any remunerative work outside of their employment.
“We have also incorporated into our recruitment processes the matter of, or the issue of, making sure that business with state, and particularly employees' registration on the central supply database, is vetted up front as a matter of ethics,” said Mocke.
“I can confirm, Chairperson, as the head of human resource management for the department, that we have taken concrete disciplinary action year on year against staff members who have either failed to comply with the disclosure processes and those who have under-disclosed or where other irregularities have been picked up. Most recently, in April of this year, a senior manager, identified as a repeat offender in this area, was placed on suspension without pay, as an outcome of a disciplinary hearing that had been held.”
Mocke said the department was dealing with a full-blown lifestyle audit for the 2025/26 financial year.