26 CIVIL SERVANTS IN BID TO SHIFT RETIREMENT DATES

LOBAMBA – Over 420 civil servants requested to alter their birth dates to shift their retirement dates by five years.

A report that was tabled by the Minister of Public Service, Mabulala Maseko, in Parliament, confirmed suspicions that were raised by Members of Parliament (MPs), that some civil servants alter their dates of birth. The suspicions are that in most cases, civil servants alter their age when they are about to retire.

The report tabled by the minister, which is yet to be adopted or rejected by MPs, indicates that 426 civil servants in the past five years, made requests to alter their dates of birth. The minister stated in the tabled report that 246 of the requests were successful, while 180 were rejected. Out of over 44 000 civil servants, the granted requests consist of 0.2 per cent of the headcount.

Responding

The motion that the minister was responding to was moved by Lobamba Lomdzala MP Marwick Khumalo and seconded by Mayiwane MP Sicelo Dlamini. The MPs moved that the Minister of Public Service should engage the Civil Service Commission (CSC), with a view to investigate the growing and prevalent trend of public servants who resort to altering their dates of birth, either midway through their period of employment or towards their retirement age.

The minister was given 14 days to table a report before the House. The MPs said if the CSC could successfully carry out the assignment; it would be revealed that the public service is dominated by people who should have long retired. It has been mentioned in various sectors that some civil servants prolong their stay in the civil service, by falsifying their dates of birth.

It has also been mentioned that fishing them out would result in job openings for new blood in the government system, thus presenting an employment opportunity for some of the around 260 000 unemployed emaSwati, who cannot be absorbed by government because of the hiring controls put in place. The retirement age in Eswatini, according to the Swaziland Retirement Act Fund, is 60 years.

The Public Service Pensions Fund Regulations also stipulate that a member retires from public service at 60 years of age, while judges retire at 75 years. The Mayiwane MP stated that the investigation was not meant to scandalise anyone, but assist government in dealing with the high unemployment rate.  

Dlamini went on to state that civil servants, who were hired back in 1990, or before, have new national identification cards (IDs) in their files that were obtained between 2019 to 2021. In response to the motion, the minister, in the tabled report, stated that various reasons may lead to altering dates of birth by civil servants.

“The Ministry of Public Service wishes to inform Parliament that altering an individual’s date of birth (DOB) can arise from various factors, including erroneous data capture, conflicting information given by an officer and administrative oversight,” he said. Maseko, in the tabled report, said one primary reason for altering dates of birth is the erroneous capture of data during initial employment processes.

When public servants are recruited, their personal information is collected through various forms, which may lead to mistakes due to human error or miscommunication. Such errors can result in incorrect dates being recorded in the official documents.

Another significant factor contributing to this trend, the minister said, is the presentation of conflicting DOBs by officers on employment forms compared to what is stated on their birth certificates. This discrepancy often arises from a lack of standardisation in documentation practices or from individuals not having access to accurate records at the time they fill out employment forms.

Employment

In some instances, individuals may present a different date on their employment form than what appears on their legal documents, due to personal reasons such as a lack of knowledge or misunderstandings about their actual DOBs. He also blamed administrative oversight.“The administrative processes involved in maintaining personnel records may not always be robust enough to catch these discrepancies promptly. As a result, alterations can go unnoticed for extended periods, until audits or reviews are conducted,” he said.

Maseko added that data entry errors are a common thing in many organisations. He mentioned that it then results in an individual’s file having different dates of birth for the same person, which creates challenges in making administrative decisions, including training plans and communication of the retirement date to the officer concerned, by ministries,” he said.

He explained that when personal information is recorded incorrectly, whether through typographical mistakes or miscommunication, the consequences can be far-reaching. “For instance, if an employee’s DOB is entered incorrectly into the human resources management system, it may lead to incorrect administrative decisions, including calculations regarding retirement age and benefits, hence the need for the correction of wrongly captured or confusing several dates of birth for the same officer,” states the minister’s report.

Going forward, the minister said measures have been put in place to ensure that the personal particulars of every civil servant are correctly captured when they enter the service. “These measures include periodic review of the personal details of civil servants contained in the Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS).
The ministry is also exploring means of integrating the HRMIS and the National Population Register, to ensure the accuracy of the personal details of each civil servant,” he said.

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