Sick leave costs in the public service skyrocketed between 2020 and 2023 – from R8bn in 2020 to R11.5bn in 2022 before dipping slightly to R10.1bn in 2023 – at huge cost to the fiscus, and continue to rise, with the SAPS, for instance, spending more than R130m on sick leave costs just in the past financial year.
And recently, it was revealed that nearly 9 000 “ill” Gauteng Health staff had already exhausted their sick leave days over a three-year cycle, with HR managers being slammed for “deplorable” management.
Apart from the exorbitant costs involved, the number of employees absent at any given time results in inadequate staffing numbers across the country and in state services, particularly in health institutions, most of which are already crippled by shortages.
The Public Service Commission (PSC), which recently presented a report on leave and other challenges in the public sector, said that after government workers returned to work when Covid-19 restrictions were relaxed, the cost of sick leave to the government purse ballooned.
The costs fluctuated over the four-year period and were linked to the number of staff employed during that time, it said.
News24 reports this is evident in national departments, where the sick leave cost was highest in 2022 at R4bn: in 2021, it was R2.5bn.
In 2023, national government departments recorded R3.1bn in sick leave costs. Gauteng had the largest costs with R1.4bn, and KwaZulu-Natal the second largest with R1.3bn. The Western Cape recorded R759m and Limpopo R762m.
The Northern Cape incurred the least costs, followed by the Mpumalanga and North West provincial departments. This pattern is proportionate to the total number of employees in these two provinces.
The report also showed that more employees aged 30 to 39 and 40 to 49 took sick leave during the 2020 to 2023 calendar years compared with other age groups.
“There is a consistent pattern of sick leave usage in the public service, with an average of six to eight days per individual employee per annum, except for the Northern Cape and national departments, whose averages range from seven to 10 days per person per annum,” the report said.
The PSC has recommended that all government departments, including supervisors and HR units, should audit sick leave records annually to identify instances of excessive use and possible misuse by employees.
Cops rack up days
However, the SAPS, which has spent R131m on paid sick leave in the past financial year – most of it for longer than six months – has justified the days off, with its union claiming the more than 600 staff who were off were not abusing their leave.
Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, who revealed the expenditure this week in response to a written parliamentary question from the DA, said the SAPS had spent R131 585 808 on the paid sick leave during the 2023/24 financial year.
“The total number who were on paid sick leave for more than six months, during the 2023/24 financial year, is 618,” said Mchunu, responding to DA MP Lisa Schickerling’s question.
The expenditure has been red-flagged since 2012 by the Portfolio Committee on Police, which at the time heard that police officers were prone to calling in sick “after weekends or their four days’ off”.
The DA now wants the committee to request the PSC to probe “instances of abuse of sick leave”.
Schickerling told the Sunday Times that during the committee’s oversight visits to stations, absenteeism and “burn-out” were often cited as headaches by station commanders.
While some cases of long sick leave were justifiable due to “traumatic and stressful” working conditions, she said, there were definitely instances of abuse, including among the top management.
“There are a lot of good police …but it’s not fair to put their lives at risk daily while others are getting away with this abuse of sick leave,” she said.
She acknowledged there were hardworking officers who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and from burnout, “and we really feel for them and believe they should be looked after properly by the SAPS to ensure that their health and their mental health are up to standard”, but there were clearly others who were abusing sick leave.
The DA MP argued that the SAPS was lax in its management of paid sick leave.
“Management is dealing with this effectively… they don’t have the will to deal with the abuse. We keep having workshops but there’s no tangible action plan.
“Surely if you are off for longer than six months, something must be done, and you must look at perhaps boarding these staff or look at what the issues are.”
The South African Policing Union (Sapu) rejected suggestions that there was abuse of sick leave. Spokesperson Lesiba Thobakgale said those making the claims had no idea what their members were subjected to in the line of duty.
“Do they know that when you wake up and put on your boots, you might not come back to your family? And that the building where you report for duty is dilapidated… You get shot at, attacked ….and people say the health of the police does not matter, they must not get sick?”
There were gaps in how the SAPS was providing “employee wellness support” to police officers, he added.
“Members don’t get the necessary debriefings after attending to traumatic scenes…We’ve been on a journey with SAPS. There was a workshop earlier this year to try to deal with issues. It’s still work in progress but… the reality is they don’t have capacity, not enough personnel who can debrief our members – they go home with that traumatic experience, tomorrow they come back to attend to another one.”
Gauteng Health staff ‘unhealthy’
Meanwhile, revelations earlier this month that nearly 9 000 “ill” staff had exhausted their sick leave days over a three-year cycle saw the Gauteng Department of Health being slammed for its deplorable human resources management, which has encouraged employees to exaggerate their leave days.
At a meeting on the Policy and Procedure for Incapacity Leave and Ill Health Retirement attended by the CEOs and HR managers of various divisions in the department, officials scrutinised the number of staff who had exhausted their 36 days of sick leave over the three-year cycle – during which they are entitled to 12 days a year, and those who are subsequently placed on unpaid leave once their 36-day entitlement has been used up.
An audit is now under way to probe the numbers of employees who have taken “unauthorised incapacity leave”, taken when they are unable to work due to ill health or injury, and have exhausted standard sick leave, reports Yoliswa Sobuwa for Health-e News.
“The issue of staff resorting to incapacity leave after exhausting their sick leave days emerged during the department’s Ziveze campaign (Reveal Yourself) to root out ghost employees,” a source said, adding that as part of the same campaign, the department froze the salaries of 188 employees at the end of April after they failed to report for physical verification at their jobs.
Unauthorised incapacity leave
The department has pledged to review cases of incapacity leave being granted without approval from the HR manager.
Department spokesperson Motalatale Modiba said 20 employees were currently on long-term temporary incapacity leave, which is initially granted for 30 days, but if the employee remains unwell, medical documents must be submitted for further assessment.
Between the 2021/22 and 2024/25 financial years, 8 571 employees have already exhausted their sick leave entitlements.
TimesLIVE article – Cops rack up R131m bill for sick leave (Restricted access)
Health-e News article – Gauteng Health slammed over HR failures and sick leave abuse (Open access)
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