The City of Johannesburg is investigating a number of its employees for downloading and e-mailing pornography, the Star newspaper reported on Monday.
Gabu Tugwana, director of communications, confirmed an internal audit had investigated about 200 cases.
She said one of the employees — a director in the housing department –was ”removed from his position and reassigned” after allegedly being found with about 2 000 pornographic pictures and movies on his computer.
A pair of managers reportedly resigned after investigators discovered they had deleted nearly 100 000 pictures, movies and music files from their computers.
A third manager who was investigated with them was caught and disciplined but remained employed by the council.
Said Tugwana: ”It was only after completing six months of the disciplinary action that he [the director of housing] was allowed to work in the Metro centre again.”
In separate investigations, 10 managers’ computers were scanned and only two came out clean.
It was discovered that the managers had been doing private work for the African National Congress Youth League.
”Almost every computer touched has porn on it. In one department investigated, 80% of computers had pornography on them,” said a source. The investigation also turned up a number of pornographic websites that were frequented by employees.
IT expert Arthur Goldstuck of World Wide Worx said employees were often not aware their computer activities were being monitored. – Sapa