By Kotie Geldenhuys
Photo courtesy of Pexels
Ghost stories used to belong to fiction, creepy tales told for fun. But this is no story. In South Africa, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of “ghosts” are stealing from the living with sham identities, drawing salaries from the State while taxpayers foot the bill. The rot is not limited to government – private companies have a similar problem. And ghost employees are not unique to South Africa – across the globe, public institutions and businesses are bleeding billions because of these phantom names on their payrolls.
A “ghost employee” is a worker who exists only on paper, appearing on a company’s payroll without ever performing any real work. This fraudulent practice, referred to as ghost employee fraud, is a type of white-collar crime where dishonest insiders exploit payroll systems to siphon money from their employers. Ghost employees are often fictitious individuals added to payroll records to collect salaries, benefits or overtime payments. The payments are then diverted into the fraudster’s own bank account or that of an accomplice (Abramson, 2024).
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[This is only an extract of an article published in Servamus: November 2025. This article is available for purchase.]