Seven senior government employees found themselves without jobs after former defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula was appointed speaker of parliament in 2021.
The employees, who were attached to Mapisa-Nqakula’s office, found themselves in limbo when the department of defence terminated their services. Their secondment period from the department of correctional services, of which Mapisa-Nqakula had previously been minister, had also lapsed.
One of them, Bhekophilayo Ngobese, who was the minister’s head of security, approached the General Public Service Sector Bargaining Council (GPSSBC) to declare their dismissals unfair. GPSSBC commissioner Mohau Ntaopane last year ruled the defence department should reinstate three of them — but not Ngobese — with back pay.
Ngobese appealed the GPSSBC ruling in the labour court. He filed documents where the case is pending identifying the posts held by the other six officials as:
- cabinet liaison officer;
- personal assistant to the chief of staff;
- deputy director of administration;
- director of administration;
- media liaison officer; and
- chief director.
Ntaopane said that in July 2019 some of the seven had accepted new conditions of employment offered by the defence department.
“The [department] did not therefore unilaterally change their terms and conditions of employment. It may have been prudent of those applicants to refuse to accept those conditions and declare a dispute of unilateral changes to terms and conditions of employment at the time the offers were made … Applicants found themselves having travelled this long road with the minister and the uncertainty around their employment,” said Ntaopane.
Applicants found themselves having travelled this long road with the minister and the uncertainty around their employment
— Mohau Ntaopane
Most of the employees had been seconded from the department of correctional services, but confusion arose when the two departments agreed they would be absorbed by the defence department on a permanent basis. Vice-Admiral Asiel Kubu, who heads human resources at the defence department, told the GPSSBC the department had tried to help Ngobese and others but had hit a brick wall.
“[Kubu] testified that the current minister of the defence department was minister Thandi Modise and that he could only advise her in terms of qualifications in terms of the public service regulations but cannot tell her who to appoint,” the commissioner said.
“He explained further that he has not seen any appointment letters to the effect that the applicants coming from correctional services were appointed permanently, , as such he could not speak to the process followed by [that department] … It was further argued that Vice-Admiral Kubu was unable to refer the tribunal to any fixed-term contracts of the applicants and that his view that their ordinary appointment letters were in fact fixed-term contracts was a misinterpretation,” said Ntaopane.
Some of the officials had moved with Mapisa-Nqakula to defence from correctional services; those posts had been filled and they could not return.
“The services and divisions were not prepared to use the officials but gave no reasons as to why. They then also engaged [correctional services] with the view to returning the four officials who were saying they were permanent there; however, [correctional services] was not prepared to take them back, stating that the [defence department] had committed to absorb the officials permanently to the structure in 2014,” said Ntaopane.
In his ruling confirming three of the employees should be reinstated he said the defence department should pay and reinstate them by no later than the end of August 2023.
“The remaining applicants in this matter have not established a dismissal and are therefore not entitled to a remedy,” said Ntaopane.
An insider at the department of defence said this was cause for concern for government employees attached to ministers and not departments. “The painful thing is that even though Mapisa-Nqakula tried to help them to be absorbed by the department, there was not much that could be done. People are left to fend for themselves and faced with debts because there is now a new minister who also comes with her own people. It is unfair at many levels,” the source said.
The department of defence did not respond to questions sent by the Sunday Times on Wednesday. It remains unclear whether the department will defend the case brought by Ngobese in the labour court and if it has reinstated and paid the other employees as ordered by the GPSSBC.
Mapisa-Nqakula resigned as speaker in April after being charged with corruption.
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