City Press reports that Macbeth Ncongwane, the lawyer representing former SANParks CEO Fundisile Mketeni, has vowed to reveal how officials within the entity coached a woman to frame his client.

The SANParks board fired Mketeni on 1 June after he was convicted of six of the seven charges levelled against him based on breaching the entity’s code of ethics and business conduct policy. SANParks has refused to specify the charges, saying it is a matter that involves only the employer and the employee. Prior to the outcome of the internal disciplinary hearing, Mketeni was acquitted in the Bushbuckridge Magistrate’s Court of sexual assault and assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, after a 35-year-old woman employed at Kruger Shalati Lodge – a concessionaire with the Kruger National Park – had laid the charges in May last year. Mketeni has filed papers with the CCMA arguing that his dismissal was unfair and that the charges on which he was found guilty were similar to the criminal ones in respect of which he was acquitted. The CCMA hearing is scheduled for 9 January. Ncongwane told City Press last week that he had gathered more information to prove that the whole incident was staged to frame Mketeni so that he could be pushed out of his job because of the transformation initiatives he had been implementing.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Sizwe Sama Yende at City Press (subscriber access only)

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page