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Sunday World reports that the Government Pension Administration Agency (GPAA) is investigating two white senior officials for allegedly calling their colleagues and the entity’s acting CEO the k-word in racially charged WhatsApp exchanges.
The two officials are chief information officer Meiring Coetzee and Esti de Witt, a general manager in legal services. Acting GPAA CEO Job Stadi Mngomezulu has asked Coetzee and Witt to provide reasons why they should not be suspended for their conversation laden with racial slurs. Coetzee and Witt’s racial epithets were made amid a high-stakes investigation into the agency’s procurement processes. Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana ordered the probe at the GPAA, which administers pensions for over 1.8 million public servants, over the award of a tender to a black-owned company, LCS Biometric System, to install a system to curb corruption, estimated to cost about R12-billion in monthly payments to phantom employees.
However, despite being a victim of Coetzee and Witt’s alleged racial attack, Mngomezulu faces internal accusations of applying a double standard in his disciplinary actions. According to agency insiders, he suspended two black officials without ever asking them for reasons why they should not be suspended, a courtesy he is accused of only affording to Coetzee and Witt. GPAA spokesperson Mack Lewele confirmed the investigation defended the decision not to suspend the two, which he said was “in line with the regulations, on a case-by-case basis”. The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union has also entered the fray, demanding an independent forensic investigation.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Bongani Mdakane at Sunday World
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