Upheaval at Joburg agency as second manager quits

The Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) is in turmoil after the resignation of another top official on Monday and the suspension of the company secretary who alerted the board to governance problems in the organisation.

Company secretary Karen Mills was marched out of the building on Thursday along with former MD Sean Phillips after she made a protected disclosure to Maj-Gen Shadrack Sibiya, who heads the city’s group forensic investigations unit.

Mpho Kau, head of infrastructure development, resigned on Monday.

Kau, a former acting MD, did not want to elaborate on the reasons for his resignation.

Phillips tendered his resignation last Tuesday.

It is understood that the reasons for Mills’s suspension were the last straw for Phillips before he resigned.

Building township roads and fixing potholes are critical elements of Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba’s delivery plan. These have to be implemented by the JRA.

The JRA has a new board, appointed in March by the IFP member of the mayoral committee for transport, Nonhlanhla Makhuba. Sipho Tshabalala, a Soweto businessman who owns the Vilakazi Restaurant and has a passion for youth development, is the chairman.

Not long afterwards, Mills raised concerns about governance in the JRA with the city’s group governance function as well as with the independent member of the road agency’s audit committee.

Mills said the board had then ordered her to speak only to the chairman of the audit committee in future.

She was told not to speak to the JRA’s sole shareholder, the City of Johannesburg, or to the independent member on the audit committee.

However, Mills approached Sibiya to make a disclosure under the Protected Disclosures Act, which provides for employees to report unlawful or irregular conduct.

On Monday, the board issued Mills with a letter of intention to suspend her, which took place on Thursday.

Phillips’s resignation was also effective from Thursday, and his offer to serve out his notice was declined.

Tshabalala denied the incidents were related, saying Phillips had resigned before Mills’s suspension.

Mills on Monday confirmed her suspension.

She faces four charges: two relate to her conduct as company secretary; the third charge is gross insubordination, which she says is based on her disclosure; and the fourth is that the relationship between her and Tshabalala has broken down. This is the only charge she agrees with.

Mills is also the ethics officer for the JRA, and all reports sent to the whistleblower’s hotline, is sent to both her and Sibiya.

Mills said that the board had gained access to her protected disclosure by improper means.

Asked if Phillips had agreed with Mills’s suspension and if it had influenced his resignation at all, Tshabalala insisted that they were not connected as Phillips had resigned on Tuesday and Mills was suspended only on Thursday.

“There is no way that you can link the two,” he said.

Asked if Mills had raised any issues with regard to governance in the JRA, Tshabalala said that she had not done so with the board.

He did not know if she had raised concern with anyone else as he was not the company secretary and was not privy to that information, he said.

Tshabalala could not be reached for comment on Kau’s resignation.