The City of Johannesburg has successfully concluded its Ziveze Employee Verification process, a large-scale audit initiative designed to strengthen payroll integrity and reinforce financial accountability across all departments and municipal entities.
The process recorded a 99% verification rate at the City’s core administration and 98% across entities, excluding staff who were on approved leave or had valid exemptions.
Some employees experienced challenges due to missing identity documents, which required temporary measures and follow-ups with the Department of Home Affairs. HR teams also made special arrangements for shift workers to ensure they could participate without disrupting operations.
Enzo Masiya, Assistant Director for Management Strategic Support (Audit), says the initiative was unparalleled in scope. “While employee verifications have been done before, none have been as comprehensive as this one,” he explains. Delivering accuracy at this scale required thorough planning, sufficient resources and strict project management.
He notes that Ziveze was essential to validating payroll expenditure for the City’s workforce of approximately 39 000 employees. The process is aligned with Section 66 of the Municipal Finance Management Act No. 56 of 2003, which compels the City Manager as Accounting Officer to report all salary-related expenditure to Council.
The City ensured widespread awareness of the verification exercise through CoJ Messages, Bulk SMS and JoziNet, ahead of the deadline. Masiya says the initiative has strengthened internal controls by confirming that every individual receiving a municipal salary is duly verified.
With the verification phase now complete, the City is analysing flagged cases for possible irregularities. The Group Forensics and Investigation Services will take these forward to determine whether any ghost employees—individuals being paid without rendering a service—exist within the system.
Masiya says Ziveze demonstrates the City’s ongoing commitment to fiscal discipline, transparency and the elimination of wasteful expenditure. “Through Ziveze, the City has reinforced its commitment to payroll accuracy, ensuring that all municipal salaries are valid, correctly allocated and transparently recorded.”
He emphasises that this forms part of an ongoing effort: “This is not a once-off exercise. The City will continue refining its verification mechanisms to uphold accountability and responsible governance across all municipal structures.”
Written by Brümilda Swartbooi