Times Of Swaziland: NAMBOARD CFO ACCUSED OF SUBMITTING FRAUDULENT SICK NOTES

NAMBOARD CFO ACCUSED OF SUBMITTING FRAUDULENT SICK NOTES
================================================================================
Ntombi Mhlongo on 06/08/2023 15:57:00


MBABANE – The management of the National Agricultural Marketing Board
(NAMBoard) had to go as far as South Africa (SA) to determine the authenticity
of medical certificates submitted by suspended Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Mzwandile Kunene.
The findings, according to the parastatal’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Bhekizizwe Maziya, are to the effect that Kunene produced fraudulent medical
certificates in order to evade an appearance before a disciplinary hearing. This
is contained in an answering affidavit, where the parastatal wants the court to
dismiss an application by Kunene, who wants a decision to suspend the payment of
his monthly remuneration for the month of July 2023 set aside. The CFO
challenged the disciplinary hearing at the Supreme Court after Maziya suspended
and subsequently preferred five charges against him.
verify information
Maziya said on August 2, 2023, he and Corporate Services Manager Temangcamane
Maseko and Attorney Jasmine Dlamini travelled to hospitals in Evander and
Trichard, SA, in an effort to verify information which had been furnished by
Kunene. He said they established from the Evander Hospital that they did not
have a patient no: 12308/23, who was admitted at their facility. The findings
detailed by the CEO remain allegations, whose veracity is yet to be tested by
the Court. “In fact the register of patients was in the region of the 7000s.
The number in the sick note is, therefore, far beyond the hospital’s valid
register of patients who have either been admitted or put in confinement at
Evander,” the CEO said. Another finding he claimed they made was that there
were no records of Mzwandile Peterson Kunene as searched for through his full
name or second name or through his identity number having been admitted at the
same hospital on the dates suggested on his sick note or any dates subsequent to
commencing from the period 2017 and up until August 2, 2023.
Also, Maziya said when attending to them, the desk clerk at the Evander Hospital
was emphatic in that the non-registration of patients was not a practice the
hospital condoned. Elaborating, the CEO submitted that a certain Dr Mbowane, who
allegedly appended his signature to the two medical certificates, one from
Evander Hospital and another from Terra Nova Medic was a private pediatrician,
who attended at Evander once a week and solely to attend to children within the
public institution. “There is further a register of doctors attached to the
hospital, who see patients on a rotational basis, which Dr Mbowane did not
appear on. I do confirm that we also met Dr Mbowane and briefly consulted with
him. According to Dr Mbowane, Kunene was purportedly discharged from hospital on
Wednesday, July 26. “However, he could not provide us with details of the
discharge and the identity of the facility that allegedly discharged him,”
Maziya submitted.
He stated that the issue of the medical certificate and supposed illness of
Kunene must be seen against the backdrop of his persistent refusal to submit to
a disciplinary process and that having exhausted all legal avenues, he had now
resorted to using ‘dubious’ medical certificates. According to Maziya, they
have established on a balance of probability that Kunene was not admitted into
the Evander Hospital and as such, the purported certificate from the institution
was invalid.
unfit for duty
Still on the issue of the medical certificates, Maziya submitted that Kunene was
ordinarily resident in Manzini but that on July 4, he sent by email a medical
certificate issued by the Pigg’s Peak Government Hospital, which indicated
that he was unfit for duty. He said there were a number of unsettling features
in the medical certificate. First, according to Maziya, it was difficult to
appreciate why the applicant would seek treatment at the Pigg’s Peak public
hospital given that he was on a medical aid scheme that was fully paid by the
parastatal as part of his employment benefits. Second, Maziya said, the decision
to leave Manzini and travel all the way to Pigg’s Peak defied logic due to
that if Kunene was indeed unwell, one would have reasonably expected that he
would attend to a medical facility within the Manzini-Mbabane corridor. “I am
advised that in the ordinary course, medical practitioners will certify an
employee as being unfit for duty for a maximum of four days and thereafter
conduct a review, unless the employee is admitted. The respondent had noted that
the certificate was issued by the outpatient department,” argued Maziya. Again
on July 11, Kunene is said to have his medical certificate indicating that he
was unfit for duty from July 7, for an indefinite period and the certificate was
purportedly issued from a private medical practitioner in Trichardt, SA.
top investigation
“Upon conducting a desk top investigation, we established that Terra Nova
Medics, who ostensibly issued this certificate, were private medical
practitioners with no admission facilities. We concluded that the applicant was
not admitted to any hospital. The certificate did not even bear a stamp
confirming that it had been issued by a registered medical facility,” said
Zwane. Upon noting the anomalies, Zwane said they informed Kunene that they did
not recognise the certificate as it was a nullity. He said what then followed
was a production of a series of other medical certificates, which sought to
remedy the defects in the original certificates. The first additional
certificate, Zwane said, now had a stamp and the second now purported to emanate
from Evander Hospital. “When we pointed out anomalies, the inquiry became a
farce as more dubious ones kept coming. However, what was imperative was that
all of the certificates that purported to come from SA did not meet peremptory
requirements for a medical certificate as set out in the Employment Act. They
were all, therefore, unacceptable,” said Maziya. The parastatal is represented
by lawyers from Robinson Bertram in the matter.