By Sabelo Ndzinisa | 2022-06-24
High Court - The former Under Secretary in the Deputy Prime Minister’s office, Hlobisile Dlamini has won the first round against Makhosini Mndawe, former principal secretary in the same office.
Dlamini had filed an urgent application where she was seeking an order interdicting Mndawe from continuing with disciplinary proceedings against her, pending the hearing and finalisation of the grievance she lodged against the PS, who is the first respondent in the matter.
She also sought that the court direct the respondents to appoint an independent person, being a labour law practising attorney, to hear and determine the grievance and that select committee appointed by Mndawe be removed and stopped from continuing with the hearing.
The court granted her prayers that the committee should not continue with the disciplinary hearing and that they be removed from the committee.
The committee was further interdicted from continuing to call her for investigations in relation to the allegations levelled against her by the PS. The court also dismissed the points of law raised by government that she failed to exhaust all remedies available before approaching the Industrial Court.
However, she was denied her prayers to have the disciplinary stopped and that the respondents appoint an independent person to hear and determine the grievance against her.
According to the judgment delivered by acting Judge V.Z Dlamini yesterday, the court noted that the first respondent (Mndawe) had formed the view that the applicant (Dlamini) had to appear before the committee to convince them that she did not commit the misconduct, failing which he would refer her case to the civil service commission.
The court questioned what would have been the point of referring the matter to the CSC had the committee already arrogated to themselves the former’s prerogative?
The PS’s point in limine on the US’s failure to exhaust internal remedies was also dismissed by the acting judge. The bone of contention in the matter emanated from allegations that the US misappropriated E10 million from the DPMO with alleged defamatory stories published in the local print media.
The defamatory stories, according to the US appeared in October last year (2021) in one of the print media houses. She highlighted that six months after such was published, the police had not interviewed nor arrested her about the E10 million allegations. She argued that the allegations were at the instance of the PS who allegedly wanted to drag her name into the mud.
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