PORN SCANDAL HITS JOBURG COUNCIL

Whilst this is obviously a concern, I must admit that I am really not shocked at all at what is going on. Actually I am shocked that the writer and obviously the Internal Audit Divisions in all of the below mentioned cases, are so out of touch with reality, that they were not aware of it.

Porn and music downloads are common occurances in most of the workplaces and if you as the Business Owner or the Department head don't control it - it will control you. That's the reality of the situation!

Porn scandal hits Joburg council
November 06 2006 at 06:53AM
By Alex Eliseev

They should be running the city, but an alarming number of council employees - from secretaries to senior directors - are spending their days downloading, watching and distributing pornography.

The Star is in possession of three confidential reports, compiled by the City of Johannesburg's internal audit department, after embarrassing porn scandals last year. Well-placed sources say as many as 200 cases have popped up over the past two years during general checks. At least two cases involving middle managers have surfaced in the past three months.

'80 percent of computers had pornography on them'

The City has had to investigate its workers for possessing child pornography, downloading copyrighted music and movies, and using highly illegal software to cover their tracks. Some have even been spending taxpayers' money on searching the Internet for Russian brides.

In one case, fed-up advocate Karen McKenzie, executive director of the Independent Complaints Directorate, wrote to the city manager (then Pascal Moloi) asking him to take urgent action. "Kindly advise on your commitment in requesting your employees to desist from sending hard-core pornography, child pornography, bestiality, gross violence, chain letters and jokes into my department through the email facility," she wrote.

The letter, and subsequent City investigation in May last year, followed one of its employees using email to distribute pornography. When confronted, the woman, a secretary, admitted to sending the email and was issued with a written warning. In another case, a director in the housing department, whose name is known to The Star, was investigated and found to be in possession of large amounts of porn.

Investigations revealed that he had close to 2 000 pornographic clips and pictures. The director still holds a senior position in the council and, sources say, received nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Gabu Tugwana, director of communications for the City, confirmed the investigation, and said action was taken."(He) was removed from his position and reassigned. He was further denied the right to apply for a citywide projects manager position. It was only after completing six months of the disciplinary action that he was allowed to work in the Metro Centre again.

Also last year, two middle managers resigned before they could be disciplined for spending their time, and taxpayers' money, on porn. The pair (whose names are known to The Star) resigned in the wake of an investigation that found them in possession of hundreds of dirty pictures, video clips and music files. They had surfed websites like yummy-cummy.com, wickedtemptations.com, sexyindian gals.com, mature-appeal.com and fetishsexorgy.com. Between them the pair had also deleted more than 100 000 files - which investigators managed to partly recover.

A third manager investigated along with them was disciplined and is still employed by the council. In a separate investigation, the workstations of 10 regional managers in Region 11 were scanned, and only two came out clean. It was discovered that the managers had been doing private work for the ANC Youth League, working on private business plans, and some had accumulated up to 600 music files. More than 300 porn pictures were found on one computer.

"Almost every machine touched has porn on it," one source told The Star. "In one department investigated, 80 percent of computers had pornography on them." Not only is taxpayers' money wasted due to unproductive time by council employees, but their actions clog up the City's bandwidth, which slows down operations and results in higher information technology bills.

In most private companies, viewing pornography is an offence which could result in an employee being fired. IT expert Arthur Goldstuck, of World Wide Worx, warned that employees were often not aware of just how much their computer activities were being monitored. "It's amazing how much they (forensic IT investigators) can tell and how ignorant and reckless employees can be," he said.

"A computer network is a company resource. Resources are there for the organisations, not for personal use of employees. But the onus is on the organisation to make the rules clear." Goldstuck said that in the private sector, such abuse was being taken seriously and was a widespread problem dating back about 10 years. Regarding the City's situation, he said: "From a moral point of view it's unacceptable."

This article was originally published on page 1 of The Star on November 06, 2006