Just over a quarter of the public service's senior managers don't have the required qualifications for their positions.

This is according to a response from acting Public Service and Administration Minister Thulas Nxesi.

Democratic Alliance MP Mimmy Gondwe asked what number of senior managers in the Public Service do not have the qualifications required for the positions that they currently occupy as of January 2022.

She also asked how many government departments have been able to update the qualifications of their staff members on the Personnel and Salary System (PERSAL) and whether there will be repercussions for government departments or senior managers who have failed to ensure that their qualifications are updated on the PERSAL system.

Nxesi said a reply to a parliamentary question in April 2021 showed that according to the information available from PERSAL, more than 35% of senior managers did not have the requisite qualifications for their positions.

"By 31 January 2022, the figure reduced by almost 10% to 25.9%. As it stands, a total of 2 412 out of 9 309 senior managers do not have their qualifications reflected on PERSAL," reads Nxesi's answer.

He said 50 departments updated the qualifications of their senior managers on the PERSAL system between 31 October 2021 and 31 January 2022.

Nxesi said the department is monitoring the updating of PERSAL data and continues to remind accounting officers of the importance of maintaining this information.

"The current exercise has indicated that there might be [senior management] members who possess proper qualifications but such are not reflected on the PERSAL system."

He said it is clear that departments are "gradually responding" to the instruction to update PERSAL data.

"[T]herefore further punitive measures might not be needed. It is important to reiterate the fact that the matter of the senior managers' or other employees' qualifications be understood within the broader context of the professionalisation of the public service efforts that are underway."

In December last year, then Public Service and Administration Minister Ayanda Dlodlo said the department wouldn't investigate how senior managers were appointed to government jobs without the required qualifications, as many of the managers were appointed before public service regulations were instituted in 2016.