Cape Town - The state lost R300m through fraud and other
financial misconduct by civil servants in the 2009/10 financial year, Public
Service and Administration Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said on Monday.
In national departments, R260m that could not be recovered
was lost and in the provinces, the figure came to R40m, she said in a written
reply to a parliamentary question.
Local government employees refunded the state some R4m but
in national departments the culprits paid back only R325 171, Sisulu said.
According to figures from the Public Service Commission
cited by the minister, a total of 1 135 financial misconduct cases were reported
at national and local government level in 2009/2010.
Employees were found guilty in 998 cases. Of those, 214 were
dismissed, 498 were issued with final written warnings, and the rest with
smaller sanctions.
Please
note: We earlier
published a report by Sapa stating that civil service fraud amounted to R30bn.
This was a mistake and has been rectified to R300m. We apologise for the
confusion.