SIYABONGA SITHOLE
Government officials, including MECs, procurement officials, managers, heads of department and director generals will now be subjected to polygraph tests as part of the Gauteng province's attempts to bring corruption and malfeasance to an end.
Gauteng Premier, David Makhura said this gold standard of vetting, which is not part of the current regime of lifestyle audits and vetting of officials, will kick-off as early as the beginning of September, 2022.
Among the departments that have been earmarked for the polygraph tests, to be carried out by the State Security Agency, are the Gauteng departments of health, education, infrastructure development and other high expenditure departments which the premiere said have been faced with allegations of corruption and other issues of malfeasance.
Makhura outlined the new measures during a media briefing held in the Gauteng Legislature on Tuesday, where he also spoke about initiatives by the province to bring an end to gender-based violence (GBV).
Makhura said the province was serious about rooting out corruption which continues to plague the provincial government, with some of its key departments and officials being probed in some of the ongoing investigations.
This also comes after the suspension of Tembisa Hospital CEO Ashley Mthunzi who was placed on precautionary suspension alongside his CFO Lerato Madyo after a series of irregular contracts and payments were flagged by murdered whistle-blower, Babita Deokaran who was killed over a year ago.
"The agency (State Security Agency) has done its work about vetting and verifying incomes of people, but we want them to conclude this with what we call the gold standard, where our members of the executive committee will go through a process that will enable them to get a full top secret security clearance.
“That is very important because were are among the only two provinces that are doing this in a way that President Cyril Ramaphosa wants them to be done and as prescribed. It is only Gauteng and the Eastern Cape because Western Cape did it differently and appointed a private company to carry out their process of verification.
“The end result of this is that all the MECs will undergo a polygraph test and that is the final end of the process. Everything else has been done and the State Security Agency has completed the work," Makhura said.
He said the use of the polygraph test to curb corruption in the public sector was an important development for the province.
"This process is important for us because it is what we call the gold standard. After doing everything else, we want, as the Gauteng provincial executive committee, to set a precedent that says even before people are appointed in the executive committee they must undergo lifestyle audits that does all the full assessments of their income and assets, but also to assess the fullness of their competence as public servants.
“This gold standard is standard, (and) is done somewhere else because checking people's income and expenditure is minimum, and we want a full-scale verification which comes with the polygraph test," he said.