JOHANNESBURG - Government plans to exorcise all ghost employees from the civil service.
It's issued a directive that all workers be physically verified by February.
Where fraud is found, department heads are urged to refer cases for criminal prosecution.
Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration is welcoming the move.
Its chair, Jan de Villiers, said the urgency behind the rooting out of ghost workers came with the budget speech at the beginning of the year.
"The Parliamentary Committee has been calling for an audit for ghost workers for quite some time," he said.