Phila Ngqumba
TRANSKEI police and prisons departments tried to help themselves to a 150 percent pay rise in May last year – – simply by altering computer records.
However, East Cape government officials this week insisted that the computer fiddle had been stopped before millions in unauthorised money went into the pay packets of the security forces.
Finance MEC Professor Shepart Mayatula said the police had tried to give themselves a raise in May by “tampering” with state computers. However, he said department officials had noticed on a computer printout that police and prisons’ pay had gone up by 150 percent to 159 percent in some cases.
He said: “Different people got different increases. I do not know what formula was used in coming up with those figures.”
Treasury officials had immediately confiscated the computer discs and the pay rates had been restored to their earlier levels department.
He said the move by the security forces stemmed from dissatisfaction over a freeze on promotions.
His department had handed the matter over to the “capable hands” of a national commission appointed by Mufamadi which was to make its findings known soon. —