IOL News reports that a slap across the face by a Tshwane chief licensing officer, meted out to a member of the public who was trying to assist her sister in renewing her driver’s licence at the Centurion licence office, has cost the officer his job.

The SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) unsuccessfully tried before the Johannesburg Labour Court (LC) to have the dismissal of licence officer Silulami Mvinjelwa, a shop steward, overturned. It all started when the officer refused to accept a certified copy of a woman’s ID document. An altercation ensued between him and the woman, only identified in the LC judgment as Ms Basson. This, according to Basson’s evidence, led to the slap, which Mvinjelwa denied.

Basson testified that Mvinjelwa refused to assist them. After leaving the cubicle, Basson testified that Mvinjelwa walked around his cubicle and confronted her in full view of the public. He slapped her on the right side of the face, she said, and a plainclothes policeman came to her rescue and took them to the boardroom to try and calm down. Mvinjelwa’s evidence was that he did not assault anyone on that day.

Following a disciplinary hearing on charges of misconduct, Mvinjelwa was fired. The matter was then referred to the SA Local Bargaining Council, where an arbitrator found his dismissal to be both substantially and procedurally fair. Samwu then turned to the LC on Mvinjelwa’s behalf and argued that the process had been unfair. But Acting Judge L Vukeya concluded that Mvinjelwa’s dismissal was fair as his version of events was improbable and not sustained by evidence.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Zelda Venter at IOL News

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