Pretoria: The Public Service Commission has registered 300 grievances, including 112 carried over from the previous financial year, as of 30 September 2025. The majority of these grievances concern unfair treatment, refusal to approve applications, and issues related to performance assessment and salary problems.
According to South African Government News Agency, Public Service Commission (PSC) Commissioner Anele Gxoyiya addressed the media in Pretoria, revealing that 151 of the 300 grievances (50%) have been concluded, while 149 remain pending. Of the concluded cases, 13 (9%) were substantiated, 37 (25%) were unsubstantiated, four were partially substantiated, 17 (11%) were internally resolved within departments following the PSC’s intervention, and the remaining 80 (53%) were closed for various reasons, including pending cases before different sectoral bargaining councils, the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, or courts.
Gxoyiya explained that some cases were withdrawn by aggrieved employees, while others were resolved by the departments. The grievances include 278 cases from employees on salary levels 2-12 and 22 from members of the Senior Management Service (SMS members). Among the 278 grievances from salary levels 2 to 12, 144 were concluded, with 130 (90%) concluded within 150 working days of receipt by the PSC investigators. For the 22 grievances from SMS members, seven were concluded, with six (86%) concluded within the same timeframe.
According to Gxoyiya, there is ongoing concern about the poor compliance by departments with the timelines prescribed in Resolution 14 of 2002 for grievances of employees on salary levels 2 to 12 and Chapter 10 of the SMS Handbook. The National Treasury’s Annual Report on Late Payments of Supplier Invoices for the 2024/25 financial year revealed that national departments paid 143,245 invoices after 30 days, amounting to R6.4 billion by the end of the financial year. This marks a regression of 32% or 34,328 invoices compared to the 2023/24 financial year.
The report further indicates that by the end of March 2025, national departments had not paid 2,437 invoices older than 30 days, totaling R381 million. Gxoyiya emphasized that National Treasury Instruction No. 34 requires departments to submit 30-day exception reports to the National Treasury.
During the period under review, 15 national departments complied with legislative requirements by paying all invoices within 30 days and recording no late payments. This represents 38% compliance out of 40 national departments. However, the total number of invoices older than 30 days and unpaid by the end of the 2024/25 financial year amounted to 2,437, a 71% regression compared to 1,427 invoices in the previous year.
Gxoyiya highlighted several reasons for the late or nonpayment of invoices, including inadequate budgets and cash blocking, financial system challenges, high accruals from previous financial years, disputed invoices, and unresolved supply chain management issues. He also noted concerns about non-payment within 30 days by provinces, which violates the Public Finance Management Act, and called for consequence management against Accounting Officers failing to meet this requirement.