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A parastatal chief executive is under investigation for a plethora of allegations ranging from having a romantic relationship with his personal assistant, authorising irregular appointments for his associates and wasting millions of taxpayers’ money.
Cross Border Road Transport Agency staff members lodged the allegations with former transport minister, Joe Maswanganyi, in September last year, but the board has still not put their chief executive, Sipho Khumalo, under precautionary suspension.
Maswanganyi ordered the board to investigate the allegations before he lost his job when President Cyril Ramaphosa replaced Jacob Zuma and reshuffled his Cabinet.
The board, according to Cross Border insiders, had not moved an inch on Maswanganyi’s instruction because Khumalo had neither been suspended nor hauled before a disciplinary tribunal since the complaint was lodged.
Khumalo has denied every allegation levelled against him in a sworn but unsigned statement he wrote to City Press.
Disgruntled Cross Border staff members gave City Press the list of complaints, and said that they were concerned that the board was treating Khumalo with kid gloves.
The allegations against Khumalo, which are detailed in the letter of complaint, are that:
• He has a daughter with his former personal assistant. He allegedly gave the PA six months’ paid maternity leave and, on her return to work, authorised her transfer to the facilitation and industry development division as operator relations officer on March 20 last year. City Press has seen the letter of the transfer. The former PA was then made operator relations officer for tourism in April;
• Khumalo is also accused of transferring the function of law enforcement to the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) in March last year despite two sets of legal advice disputing such a move as illegal. Cross Border’s job is to regulate cross-border transport businesses and issue permits to operators;
• Under his watch, Cross Border spent about R300 000 on disciplining an official who was absent from work for one day;
• The agency has promoted officials, some without the requisite qualifications, who were then paid above the salary band of their positions;
• An official, who is Khumalo’s friend, has been appointed into four executive positions within a period of five years even though he does not have the qualifications;
• An outspoken human resources officer whose contract was up for renewal was forced to accept a salary cut as a condition to be kept in the job. When the official challenged the matter at the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration, the agency opted for a settlement;
“We know the board is investigating but he has not been put on precautionary suspension. What kind of investigation is this?” said a Cross Border insider who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Khumalo, in a detailed response to City Press, denied having an affair with his PA, victimising or influencing the appointment of certain individuals and making wrong decisions.
Regarding the affair with his former PA, he said: “There is no truth to the allegation regarding the affair with my former personal assistant.
"She requested for a lateral transfer from my office to a position of tourism operators officer, a position that is at exactly the same level and where she is paid exactly the same amount of money that she was paid as a PA.”
He also denied granting the PA six months maternity leave.
“As a matter of fact, while she was on maternity leave, I was booked off due to a major medical procedure that had to be conducted on me.
"This operation kept me out of the office for a full two months, and during this time someone else was acting CEO. I therefore could not have granted her six months paid maternity leave when I was not even active as the CEO at the time,” Khumalo said.
Cross Border board chairperson, Moss Ramathe, confirmed that Khumalo was under investigation but said it was unnecessary to suspend him.
“The board ... is at all times required to be conscious of, and to act within the parameters of the law. The Labour Relations Act is clear on circumstance under which an employee may be suspended pending an investigation.
"These includes that there is some objectively justifiable reason for excluding the employee from the workplace,” Ramathe said.
The supporting evidence City Press has seen does not point to Khumalo as the instigator of wrongdoing, it however shows that, as a CEO, he approved most of the decisions that Cross Border took.
“Mr Khumalo,” reads the complaint, “has run the agency as his own business, abusing his power of office. [He] has victimised, sidelined and threatened outspoken staff … the board has failed to reign him in.”
Department of transport spokesperson, Ishmael Mnisi, said Khumalo reported directly to the board and therefore he could not respond.
