Former department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs superintendent-general Bea Hackula yesterday demanded to know why she had been singled out by premier Phumulo Masualle and fired on “flimsy” charges.
She has also vowed to mount a legal challenge to her dismissal.
Hackula said Masualle had yet to charge the official who had transferred R250000 into his private bank account at the time of former President Nelson Mandela’s funeral.
She also questioned why no action had been taken against those implicated in the Bhisho sex-for-jobs and nepotism scandals.
Hackula was reacting to the premier’s decision earlier this week to dismiss her from Cogta.
Hackula said she had been found guilty of submitting a late application for deviation to Treasury and for reinstating an official, who in Cogta’s own legal opinion had been dismissed unfairly.
She said she only received the reasons for her dismissal on Monday.
Office of the Premier (OTP) chief of staff Nandi Sikutshwa would not discuss the charges Hackula had been found guilty of when contacted on Wednesday.
She said it was a confidential matter between the state and employee.
Addressing a press conference in East London yesterday, Hackula said: “What I am challenging is the inconsistency of how the premier deals with cases brought to his attention.
“We know of the erroneous cash deposit into his account. No one has even received a written warning. Those are public funds,” she added.
She was referring to a Dispatch exposé in 2014 which revealed that R250000 meant for Nelson Mandela’s memorial services had been deposited into Masualle’s private bank account.
Masualle admitted at the time he had spent some of it to put petrol in his official vehicle and fix a windscreen. He also provided proof to the Dispatch that he had paid it all back because it had mistakenly been deposited into his account.
Hackula, who was voted the Business Women’s Association award winner in 2015 for being the best government administrator in South Africa, said: “You do not take money that is voted for something else and accidently put it in somebody else’s account. And now you say it’s an error. I will pay it back. It’s like when you work for the bank, you take money and use it and pay it back and say it was an error,” said Hackula.
She said Masualle continued to “sit on a number of sex-for-jobs reports which were completed long before my suspension, let alone the numerous reports involving corruption.
“It’s public knowledge that the Hawks come in and out of the social development department but no one has been suspended. No one has received a letter of warning.”
The Dispatch reported on the outcomes of Cogta’s sex-for-jobs report which implicated senior officials in nepotism while another senior official was found guilty of asking for sexual favours from his junior.
Most of those implicated have since left the department, but the report has yet to be made public or its recommendations fully implemented.
Hackula was posted to the department of corporative governance earlier this year following a fall-out with social development political head MEC Nancy Sihlwayi.
Masualle swapped Hackula with then Cogta HOD Stanley Khanyile, who had fallen out of favour with his MEC, Fikile Xasa.
While trying to settle in at Cogta, Hackula received a letter of intention to suspend her after Sihlwayi asked Masualle to charge Hackula on three counts including allegedly trading with the department.
She is also alleged to have extended the contract of a company which cared for the frail, and flouted procurement processes when she hired an accounting firm to help with the books of the department.
However, the charges that Hackula was eventually found guilty of were not part of the initial charges resulting in her suspension.
“That I had companies that did business with the state without declaring my interests is not true,” she said.
During the disciplinary hearing all the initial charges were dropped and Xasa’s office compiled new ones, including the two she has now been found guilty of.
Hackula described the move as a witch-hunt and a vendetta on women leaders and said she would not take the matter lying down.
“It indicates that there are leaders who have an attitude of not respecting women who stand for what they believe in. For the sake of other women I will fight this to the bitter end. So I am challenging it (the dismissal) legally.”
Masualle’s spokeswoman Mandisa Titi was not available to comment. — zineg@dispatch.co.za