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The Transnet board has refused to withdraw its letter of intention to summarily dismiss Transnet group chief executive Siyabonga Gama.
City Press has learnt that Popo Molefe, the board chairperson of the state logistics company, told Gama in a letter sent to him on Tuesday that the board was not going to withdraw its notice of intention to dismiss him.
Molefe was responding to a letter Gama sent to the board on Friday in which he threatened to drag it to court in a bid to have his letter of intention to dismiss withdrawn.
Read: Gama threatens to take Transnet board to court
“Gama was reminded that his failure to answer to the allegations would be viewed adversely by the board,” said the source, adding that the board was expecting a court interdict on Tuesday and Wednesday from Gama but no action had so far materialised.
Neither Gama nor his lawyers could be reached for comment on Wednesday afternoon. Gama’s cellphone was off and his attorneys did not respond to a message left with a receptionist.
In his letter on Friday, Gama threatened to go to court if the state freight-rail company did not withdraw its letter stating its intention to fire him, and threatened to ask the court to order that each of the Transnet board members personally pay for legal costs for prolonging the matter.
Gama was responding to Transnet’s letter sent to him last month in which he was asked to give reasons he should not be fired.
He was given until Thursday to respond to his dismissal notice.
But in what appeared to be a lecture about the due processes he suggested that the board should have followed, Gama said he intended to use the board’s indecisiveness in his defence. He also planned to argue that the board cannot flip-flop on an already-decided course of action when dealing with his case.
This was after the board had already informed him, on August 15, that it intended to suspend him and subject him to disciplinary action, after he was implicated in alleged maladministration relating to the controversial 1064 locomotives contract.
Read: The allegations against Gama, as contained in a report by Mnedisi Ndlovu & Sedumedi Attorneys
But more than a month later, Transnet changed its tune and said it intended to dismiss Gama and asked him to give reasons within 10 days why he should not be axed.
In his letter on Friday, his attorneys at Maluleke Seriti Makume Matlala Inc argued that the termination letter constituted a repudiation of the earlier letter of suspension.
The letter reads: “Our client relies on the legal principle of election [an earlier course of legal action] which is still part of the South African law at the time of the writing of this letter. The board’s legal advisers and some board members, who are legal practitioners, are aware of this legal principle of election and case law relating thereto.
“Our instruction is to demand as we hereby do that the board withdraw the letter of termination within 48 hours … failing which our client will approach a court of law on an urgent basis and ask for costs … from each board member personally.
The letter concludes: “Once again we refer you to clause 19 of our client’s contract of employment which states that a dispute arising from the employment relationship between the parties should be referred to arbitration.”
Gama has argued that he was not involved in the negotiations and adjudication of the 1 064 locomotives tender and could have not prevented the controversial tender from going ahead. The tender saw Gupta-linked companies score more than R5 billion in kickbacks.
Gama and two Transnet executives are accused of wrongdoing by awarding the multibillion-rand locomotive tender which was found to have been inflated from R38 billon to R54.5 billion.
