WASHINGTON’S STARTLING ALLEGATIONS AGAINST CSC CHAIR, UNDER SEC

MBABANE – Washington Khumalo, the suspended Central Transport Administration (CTA) General Transport Manager (GTM) is not going down without a fight.

Khumalo has since written to the Chairperson of the Civil Service Commission (CSC), Simanga Mamba, calling upon him to recuse himself as chairperson of his disciplinary hearing with immediate effect. The correspondence calling for the recusal of the chairman is annexed to the application, where Khumalo is vigorously challenging his suspension from work. These are allegations contained in one of the annexures in the answering affidavit filed by government in the matter. Through his attorney Meluleki Ndlangamandla from MLK Ndlangamandla Attorneys, Khumalo alleged that  the learned chairperson (Mamba) knew the GTM personally, having approached him with Naniki Mnisi asking Khumalo to allegedly avail two posts for Mamba’s relatives at the CTA Workshop. Naniki Mnisi is the Under Secretary at the Ministry of Public Works and Transport.

Khumalo alleged that this was around the year 2015 and Mamba together with Mnisi were both aggrieved when the GTM directed that proper channels should be followed as he had no authority to employ people. “The learned chairperson is close friends with the under secretary in the ministry who is one of the complainants at the hearing,” reads the letter. It was alleged that Mamba would always be influenced or conflicted by the existing friendship with the undesecretary.

Influence

“Such influence has already manifested and same will be demonstrated at the hearing,” it was submitted. The letter further states that Mamba had allegedly already exhibited actual bias through the finding guilty of Khumalo for several acts in 2021, under the disguise of a mini hearing termed ‘suspension hearing’. “The chairperson in finding our client guilty of the alleged acts, alluded to by the complainants exhibited actual bias and it is without a doubt that the learned chairperson’s mind has already been made up about our client and will not thereafter bring an impartial mind to bare,” wrote Khumalo’s attorney. The application for recusal, according to the attorney’s letter, shall be premised inter alia on the grounds that the chairperson was bias or that he had already exhibited bias acts. He said from inception, the hearing had been presided over by the former CSC Chaiperson, Peter Mamba. “This, therefore, disqualifies the current learned chairperson from simply taking over a process commenced with by a wholly differently constituted coram here,” it was alleged.

Disqualified

The attorney further wrote that the current chairperson was even disqualified to make any pronouncements within a process presided over by another chairperson, in particular in a bias manner. Meanwhile, Khumalo, who is challenging his suspension in court, said  he had been prejudged as having committed misconduct on several occasions even before the main hearing and such was an apparent miscarriage of justice. Khumalo has moved an urgent application in the Industrial Court where is seeking an order lifting his suspension sanctioned on July 21, 2021, with immediate effect. “The Civil Service Commission had through the fatally flawed and prejudicial process which they termed ‘suspension hearing’ elected to punish me for certain misconducts allegedly committed by me between March to May 2021 by issuing punitive disciplinary sanction of suspension towards completion of the main hearing,” he argued. The CSC, its chairperson, principal secretary in the Ministry of Public Works and Transport and the attorney general are respondents in the matter.

Khumalo also wants the Industrial Court to declare his suspension in the middle of the main disciplinary hearing which commenced in October 2020, as an unfair labour practice. It is further his plea to the court that it should declare that his suspension was grossly, irregular, null and void from the date of issuance. Appearing for the commission are lawyers from the chamber of the attorney general.

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