Ghostbusters freeze salaries of 230 unverified Gauteng health employees

The Gauteng health department has confirmed that it has frozen the salaries of 188 permanent employees and 42 part-time workers in an effort to smoke out ghost employees.

The department froze the salaries of staff who did not present themselves to be verified as legitimate employees.

The Sunday Times is aware of at least one Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital doctor whose salary has been frozen because they have not been verified.

Department spokesperson Motalatale Modiba said their first province-wide programme — the Ziveze (reveal yourself) Campaign initiated in October last year — had confirmed more than 85,400 of the 85,642 staff, including permanent, fixed term and periodical employees.

Employees have been required to physically present themselves to human resources and produce their latest original payslip, ID or driver's licence to be verified.

“The department has now frozen 188 employee salaries and the total number of periodical employees whose [payment] claims will be affected is 42,” Modiba said.

While it was not yet clear how many of the 230 affected employees could be ghost workers, Modiba said legitimate employees who failed to verify themselves “risk permanent removal from the payroll and potential criminal action”. 

“The department has allowed for a grace period until the end of May 2025 for those whose salaries and claims have been frozen to make representations,” he said.

“If after this period people still have not come then a forensic investigation will need to be done to find out who those people are and how were they onboarded and who was responsible, as these could be possible ghost employees.”

He said the outcome of that investigation would help the department initiate steps to recover the money and lay criminal charges where necessary.

Those who have come forward to unfreeze their salaries gave reasons for failing to present themselves earlier such as being unaware of the verification process, having been on prolonged sick leave or being inundated with too much work to make time, Modiba said.

“Others [felt they] did not see the need to be verified and refused to co-operate with the process,” Modiba said.

The department has now frozen 188 employee salaries and the total number of periodical employees whose [payment] claims will be affected is 42.

—  Motalatale Modiba, health department spokesperson

Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa) provincial secretary Bongani Mazibuko said the verification initiative was welcome but did not directly address the problem.

“Operation Ziveze is a good initiative but the challenge is that most of the problems around ghost workers are now with [junior] employees, there's always someone in management benefiting,” Mazibuko said.

He said the focus should be on “those who are able to hide ghost employees”.

“Right now we are dealing with the symptoms not the root cause of the problem ... the people who are able to hire and create these posts are in management positions [with] access to the system,” Mazibuko said.

He said the focus should be on probing “those who are able to manipulate the system”.

The department said the campaign had helped identify the number of employees on deck and they could be fully accounted for.

Modiba said the campaign was initiated by MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko to curb wasteful expenditure by ensuring that every person receiving a salary was a legitimate employee actively contributing to the provision of healthcare services.

The total provincial health budget for the 2025/2026 financial year has risen from R64.7bn to R67bn, a lower than inflation 3.7% increase, forcing the department to tighten spending.

The department was recently in the news for being unable to pay doctors and specialists their salaries and bonuses.