THE Public Service Commission is lobbying Parliament to craft a law that will prohibit senior civil servants from doing business with government while in the employ of the state.

Presenting an analysis of corruption in national and provincial government departments to the portfolio committee on public service and administration; Richard Levin, the Director-General of the Public Service Commission (PSC), said barring top civil service managers from doing business with the state was the only way to eradicate corruption in the public service.

Levin told MPs that a sampling of financial interest disclosure forms from senior managers in at least five key government departments had revealed that more than a fifth of top civil servants have stakes in companies that were doing business with the state.

Levin said this was “untenable” and necessitated the need for legislation to close any existing loopholes.

“These numbers are cause for concern... we don’t believe it is tenable and that’s why we are actually proposing that public servants, particularly senior management service (SMS) members and officials in supply chain management should be prohibited from doing business with government. This the proposal the PSC is making to honourable members,” said Levin.

Government’s senior management service comprises directors, chief directors, deputy directors-general and directors-general.

Senior managers in government earn between R790,000 and R1,5 million depending on their level and salary band.

They also manage procurement worth billions of rands.

The late minister of public service Roy Padaychie last year told parliament that several laws would be amended to tighten the rules governing civil servants doing business with state departments but said an outright ban was out of the question because of constitutional considerations.

Asked if his campaign to prohibit civil servants would not violate their right to free enterprise, Levin said he was confident that a law that falls within the ambit of the constitution and does not violate free enterprise can be drafted.

“We will look at the legal and constitutional issues involved but I am sure it can be done. It is clearly undesirable in our current stage of development... if public servants have private interests then they can’t focus on their public interest (duties),” said Levin.

His proposal seemed to carry favour with MPs from the ANC and the DA.

Committee chairman Joyce Moloi-Moropa said senior managers who have private business interests often battle to divide their time between their departmental responsibilities and their private businesses.

“Your priority does not become the state, It becomes the business where you are enriching yourself as an individual... it is a fundamental problem we need to deal with within the state so that we have managers who are focused on their goalposts,” said committee chairman Joyce Moloi-Moropa.

DA MP Deetlefs du Toit also said: “You can’t put your one foot in the private sector to gamble on a business but you also have a nest egg every month from the state... we must make a decision”.