Sunday World reports that National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) boss Advocate Shamila Batohi was ordered recently by a bargaining council to pay an employee who was dismissed through “witch-hunt” charges almost a R1-million within 14 days.

Adv Phumeza Futshane, who was a chief public prosecutor in Joburg, was dismissed in February 2022 for allegedly posting “hate speech messages” on a WhatsApp group she had created called JHB EXCO Group, which had NPA officials in Gauteng as members. One of the alleged hate speech message that Futshane was charged with was for warning one of her colleagues to be “careful of snakes” who were out to “eat him”. An IT expert confirmed that most of the messages that Futshane posted on the group were forwarded messages that were already in the public domain. The bargaining council in Pretoria ruled that although Futshane’s dismissal had been substantively fair, it was “procedurally unfair”. The chairperson of the disciplinary hearing had refused to postpone Futshane’s hearing as per her request and also did not allow her to cross-examine witnesses. The bargaining council ruled that the chairperson’s action “amounted to procedural unfairness, and it tainted the substantive unfairness of the dismissal”. The bargaining council also found that Batohi “simply dug out” old allegations against Futshane on which she was previously cleared by her predecessor, Adv Shaun Abrahams. It pointed out: “That is not permissible because it means an employer is free to charge an employee with allegations on which the employee was cleared years ago simply because an interest group had complained.” The bargaining council -ordered Batohi to pay Futshane R 999,999.96 within 14 days and not later than 4 February 2025.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Mzilikazi wa Afrika at Sunday World

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page