DPSA Disclosure | Department of Public Service and Administration Disclosure. All the details of the DPSA disclosure and all you know.
The Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) has circulated a policy document to all executive government officials in national and provincial departments instructing them to start declaring their financial interests electronically.
This is done via the e-Disclosure system, an electronic system that manages possible financial conflicts of interest between those who manage tenders, and private companies.
The system was developed in partnership with the State IT Agency and the Public Service Commission, to address the challenges presented by the current system where interests are declared manually. According to the DPSA, manual declarations result in a poor compliance rate, the submission of incomplete forms, are time-consuming, and present difficulty in monitoring and managing conflict of interest.
“All SMS [senior management service] members in the public service shall be required to disclose their financial interest using the e-Disclosure system with effect from 1 April 2014,” says the DPSA. “The system is already open for registration.” The department says it will provide training on the use of the system.
The implementation of the e-Disclosure system is one of a number of ways DPSA minister Lindiwe Sisulu is trying to clamp down on corruption in the public service. She recently announced she will establish the Anti-Corruption Bureau to investigate corruption in all three spheres of government.
The e-Disclosure system is located on the DPSA Web site and linked to other relevant existing databases such as the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission, Deeds Registration office, eNatis, and the South African Revenue Service.
The DPSA did not respond as to whether the system will be available for public viewing by time of publication.
Financial disclosure
A report by the PSC has noted the issue of conflict of interest by public official continues to plague public service.
According to the report, the total compliance rate of national and provincial departmental heads and senior managers declaring their interests for the 2011/12 financial year is 74%. Compliance means the financial disclosure form was completed and sent to the commission by the due date. This is an improvement from 2007/8, when the compliance rate in submission of financial disclosure forms was 48%.
The PSC noted that only 100% compliance was an acceptable standard. “The commission has now moved on from only monitoring compliance to looking at the accuracy of the information submitted,” states the report. Previously, only 30% of the submitted forms were scrutinised due to human resource constraints, says the commission, but it aims to scrutinise 100% of the forms submitted in the current financial year.
According to the PSC, the Northern Cape and Western Cape were the only provinces with 100% compliance in terms of financial disclosures, with the North West at the lowest with 27%. Gauteng showed 99% compliance. The report notes that 17 national departments and 14 provincial departments did not submit any financial disclosures at all.
The Public Sector Integrity Management Framework was tabled in Cabinet on 16 April. Sisulu says once the framework has been approved, all employees in the public service will be required to declare their financial interests. Departments will in turn be required to set up ethics offices and appoint ethics officers and committees.