Public administration rehabilitation through selected fourth industrial revolution technologies in South Africa: tackling systemic corruption

Worldwide, fourth industrial revolution (4IR) tools are widely promoted for anti-corruption purposes, yet rigorous South African public-sector evaluations remain scarce. Thus, this study explores how 4IR can be used for governance rehabilitation in public administration. Public administration rehabilitation entails restoring, reforming, and modernising a government’s civil service and bureaucratic institutions to address corruption, inefficiency, and poor service delivery. It involves rebuilding ethical standards, restructuring administrative powers, and strengthening institutional capacity so the state can serve the public effectively. This study focuses on phantom employee fraud, a persistent form of systemic corruption that undermines public sector governance, financial accountability, and service delivery in South Africa. The terms phantom employee and ghost employee are used interchangeably throughout this article to describe fictitious, deceased, duplicate, or otherwise ineligible individuals who continue to receive salaries from government payroll systems. This study examines the underlying causes of ghost employee fraud and explores how 4IR tools can transform payroll governance and strengthen fraud prevention within the South African public sector. A qualitative desktop research methodology was adopted. Thematic Content Analysis, guided by Braun and Clarke’s six-phase framework, was employed to identify recurring themes. The findings reveal that ghost employee fraud is driven by weak internal controls, fragmented payroll systems, ineffective oversight, collusion, and poor consequence management. The study further demonstrates that artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled technologies, including predictive analytics, biometric verification, blockchain, integrated human resource management information systems, and AI-powered whistleblowing platforms, may enhance payroll integrity through real-time monitoring, automated verification, and proactive fraud detection. The study acknowledges that technology alone may not eradicate ghost employee fraud if governance institutions remain weak, political interference persists, or consequence management is ineffective.