Today's Labour News

newsThis news aggregator site highlights South African labour news from a wide range of internet and print sources. Each posting has a synopsis of the source article, together with a link or reference to the original. Postings cover the range of labour related matters from industrial relations to generalist human resources.

Sacked Hawks Western Cape head must be reinstated, with R1.9m backpay

Details

hawksNews24 reports that an arbitration panel has ordered the reinstatement of the former head of the Hawks in the Western Cape after she was fired for an alleged breach of security and dishonesty.

Nombuso Khoza was fired in 2021, but challenged it, with the help of the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), in arbitration at the Safety and Security Sectoral Bargaining Council. The chairperson of the council has now ordered a full retrospective reinstatement, with backpay of R1.9 million, from the time Khoza was fired on 29 September 2021. As Western Cape head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks), Khoza had earned over R102,000 a month. She has not worked since she was fired. Khoza was, on 28 January 2019, accused of letting an outsider (‘the mystery man’), sit within earshot of an Auditor General meeting at the DPCI office in Cape Town, which was considered a breach of security, as well as misconduct. The second charge, of dishonesty, came about when, at the February 2019 State of the Nation Address (SONA), Khoza presented an accreditation card containing the mystery man's photo. She was not allowed in, but returned later with another card, this time with no photo on it, which restricted her to the outer perimeter. All the unit knew about the mystery man was that he was Andrew Gumede and had a conviction for shoplifting. When they asked Khoza about him, she described him as her "stakeholder". During the arbitration, Khoza said Gumede was her brother from KwaZulu-Natal. The arbitrator cleared Khoza on both charges, and declared her dismissal "substantively unfair". Hawks spokesperson Brigadier Thandi Mbambo said the Hawks would file an appeal with the Labour Court.

  • Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Jenni Evans at News24 (subscriber access only)


Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page