The top officials of Parliament have undertaken to provide updates on the dispute involving former Parliamentary Budget Office director Dumisani Jantjies, when the case at the CCMA is finalised or as developments occur.
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Parliament has been hauled before the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration (CCMA) in connection with the non-renewal of the director of its think-tank, which provides advice and analysis on budget and policy proposals.
This comes after the contract of Parliamentary Budget Office former director, Dumisani Jantjies, who was appointed on a five-year contract in December 2020, was not renewed when it expired.
Acting chief parliamentary legal advisor, Frank Jenkins, told the Joint Standing Committee on Financial Management of Parliament on Friday that Jantjies’s contract had not been renewed.
Jenkins said Jantjies was challenging the non-renewal of his contract at the CCMA.
He said papers have been changed between the parties, but a decision was awaited from the CCMA on whether it will condone the later filing of the application.
“That is where we are. We will report as soon as the matter is finalised or when there is another development on the matter,” said Jenkins.
Secretary to Parliament Xolile George said as Jenkins had explained, Jantjies’ contract ended.
“There is a dispute that is handled in the relevant platforms. That is where the process will be dealt with,” he said.
George also said Jantjies had not been removed from his position, but “it was the expiry of the contract”.
ANC MP Bheki Radebe did not mince his words when he stated: “You must be upfront that it was not handled properly.”
Radebe said it cannot be that when Jantjies' term of office ended, Parliament only started receiving information the day before his contract expired.
“Are there no procedures that are managed when the director’s term of office comes to an end, because we cannot forget that in the very same institution, we had an incident where there was a ‘protest suicide’ inside the institution,” he said.
Radebe was referring to Lennox Garane, who took his life and left a document titled “protest suicide” and listed several workplace grievances concerning the conduct of his supervisor, Dumisani Job Sithole, and others in the workplace in 2018.
“I think that it is bad. The manner in which these matters are handled is unacceptable,” said Radebe.
“I think the process was not properly managed. I asked one of my counterparts, who served as the director. What he referred to me was really disturbing, because we have to discuss what is happening here.”
He demanded an explanation of what had happened so that such incidents would never happen again.
“As I said, there was a ‘protest suicide’, which was committed in the precincts of Parliament. I think that should have been an awakening call on the side of Parliament in the way they treat the staff,” he said.
In response, George said that when there was a dispute, it fell within the realm of the labour relations.
“As it unfolds, there will be advice guided by human resources and legal, and the committee shall be updated accordingly, with the support of the advisory board of the Parliamentary Budget Office,” he said.
The matter was discussed for almost a week, and the Western Cape High Court made a ruling that is linked to Garane’s suicide, where Sithole took the investigative report by the Public Service Commission on judicial review.
The court said Garane had accused Sithole of being a bully and had explained his attempts to address his removal from the position for which he was contracted.
Judge Melanie Holderness said the report highlighted a conflict in the handling of Garane’s contract renewal, noting that Sithole was aware of the grievances against him, and the contract should have been referred to the Secretary of Parliament to ensure impartiality.
Holderness said Sithole failed to show that he will be adversely affected if the review was unsuccessful.
“The fact that the report has damning consequences does not assist the applicant. Even if the review were to be successful, it will not reverse the findings or reputational consequence for the applicant,” she said.
“The challenge to this report is quintessentially a legal issue. What this court is asked to decide will have no effect on the applicant,” said Judge Holderness in her judgment.
mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za