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Court papers filed by suspended head of parliamentary security Zelda Holtzman contain claims that Parliament’s secretary, Gengezi Mgidlana, insisted on blue lights and emergency sirens being switched on in vehicles chauffeuring him, and even instructed a driver to ignore a red traffic light.
These and other claims have emerged in Holtzman’s labour court papers.
She sought to interdict Parliament from a disciplinary hearing against her, which has since been postponed to Friday.
In the papers, Holtzman claims Mgidlana instructed his deputy, Baby Tyawa, and another official to investigate the purpose of Parliament’s two cars assigned to its protection services unit.
He also wanted an investigation into assertions by the management of parliamentary protection services that driving was not part of their duties, and their staff might not be properly equipped or have the regulated approved competence to perform driving duties.
“What were the instructions when the two cars were assigned to parliamentary protection services, and why were they assigned if driving was not their function?” wrote Mgidlana.
This was part of his response to Holtzman’s insistence that Parliament’s cars were not available to transport the secretary to Parliament and his family.
The court papers reveal that, on three separate occasions, different drivers were instructed by Mgidlana to switch on the blue lights and emergency sirens because he was running late.
Attached minutes of a meeting between Holtzman and her staff show that one protection official claimed that Mgidlana gave an instruction for the driver to switch on the blue lights and to ignore a red robot, an instruction the driver followed.
Another official revealed that Mgidlana instructed him to switch on the blue emergency lights because he thought he would be late for his flight. The official had to first pick up Mgidlana’s wife from their home on the way to the airport.
Meanwhile, it emerged that during the meeting between Holtzman and protection staff, key questions were raised by a National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union official about how Parliament staff were made to drive not only Mgidlana, but his wife and child too.
Holtzman responded that the arrangement for protection services to drive the secretary to Parliament was only in extreme cases when the secretary needed to travel, for example with confidential documentation, and that arrangements were not for a daily pick-up to and from the office.
She recommended that the secretary to Parliament should create a budget to appoint a driver and an alternative driver, and that all requests to drive the secretary to Parliament be verified first by
her office.
It appears Mgidlana did not take kindly to this and wrote a memorandum in which he instructed Tyawa to establish the veracity of the assertions that driving services were not part of the duties of protection services and their staff may not be properly equipped or have the regulated approved competence to perform these duties.
Holtzman and her deputy, Motlatsi Mokgatla, were suspended from Parliament on July 30 after they questioned the process the institution had followed in recruiting active police officers to become part of the parliamentary protection unit.
In a memorandum to Mgidlana in which the presiding officers of Parliament – Baleka Mbete and Thandi Modise, as well as their deputies – were carbon copied, Holtzman and Mokgatla raised their dissatisfaction about their “sidelining” by Mgidlana on the project to improve security in Parliament, which included the recruitment of active members of the SA Police Service to become part of the parliamentary protection unit.
Mgidlana appointed their subordinate to be in charge of the project and to report directly to him. They claimed they were sidelined as a result of their “refusal to be forced to carry out functions where the legal basis of those actions are questionable”.
The duo recommended that, among other things, Mgidlana rescind the appointment of the junior officials as project manager and that the alleged use of blue lights and sirens in the vehicles used to transport Mgidlana be fully and independently investigated to prevent a recurrence of unlawful behaviour and actions.
A week after they handed in the memorandum, Holtzman and Mokgatla were suspended from Parliament – on July 30.
Holtzman was charged on October 22 and faces five charges, among them speaking to Sunday newspapers, including City Press, while she was on suspension and comparing Parliament’s actions to those of the apartheid state.
Parliament is scheduled to file its responding affidavit tomorrow and its heads of argument on Thursday, the day before the matter is heard by the labour court, according to Advocate Modibedi Phindela, the acting deputy secretary of Parliament’s Core Business.
Phindela refused to respond to allegations by Holtzman, saying the response would be in the responding affidavit.
Mgidlana refused to comment.
