TRANSNET cannot defend its decision to pay R17 million of taxpayers’ money to fired Freight Rail division CEO, Siyabonga Gama.
Former Transnet board chairman Mafika Mkwanazi told the Zondo Commission yesterday they decided to reinstate and pay Gama after they received a legal opinion doubting Transnet would win its Bargaining Council case against Gama.
This despite Transnet previously receiving three legal opinions that it had a strong prospect of winning the case.
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Gama was suspended for gross misconduct in 2009, found guilty at a disciplinary hearing the next year and fired. But he was reinstated in 2011 with full back pay.
Commission chairman Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo asked Mkwanazi if he would agree that the decision to bring Gama back was indefensible.
“I would tend to agree with you because the board didn’t have the facts of the last matter. It never surfaced on documentation that this third matter was a dismissible offence under any circumstances.”
Mkwanazi said at the time, the board was worried the matter would take too long, forcing the division to operate without a CEO.
He said former public enterprises minister Malusi Gigaba instructed his board to review Gama’s case, but denied he told them to reinstate him. “It was an instruction to review. Even that review would have been false because some of the matters that Gama was charged for would have confirmed the dismissal,” he said.
The commission heard that before Gama was fired, he had a final written warning, which he served while on suspension.
This irked Zondo. “I don’t normally use strong language, but what would you say if somebody says this is a nonsensical final written warning?” he asked.
Mkwanazi said they discussed different types of final warnings and settled on this one. He denied instructing Transnet’s internal attorney Siyabulela Mapoma to pay Gama’s legal costs.
“I deny giving this instruction to Mapoma. I would have said go back to the agreement and implement what is in the agreement because what is implemented is over and above what was in that agreement,” he said.
