AN UNACCEPTABLE LOSS
A quantity surveyor’s failure to ensure that a project was profitable cost his employers millions; yet he asked that his dismissal be declared unfair
How is it possible for just one employee to cause a loss of well over R2m to a company, I wondered, reading a recent decision from the labour court. But when I saw the employee was a quantity surveyor who did not complete and submit monthly cost reports on a shopping mall project, the figures started to make sense.
In August 2015 the quantity surveyor in question, Thabang Madonsela, was fired by Belo & Kies Construction for causing a significant loss to the company through ignoring a “reasonable instruction”: to complete and submit monthly cost reports.
When he referred an unfair dismissal dispute to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation & Arbitration (CCMA), the arbitrator found the firm’s dismissal procedure to be procedurally and substantively unfair, and ordered it to pay him R117,000 in compensation.
Still smarting at its loss on the mall project, Belo & Kies asked the labour court for its view on the CCMA decision. The court then went through the evidence that was provided and procedure that was followed at the CCMA.
The company’s contracts manager had told the CCMA that Madonsela, a qualified quantity surveyor, was appointed specifically in that capacity for the project to construct Thaba Mall in Thabazimbi, Limpopo. In charge of all the site costs, he had to ensure that the project was profitable.
But he did not submit monthly cost reports — an essential management tool to monitor costs and make sure the company did not lose money on the project.
His first report “did not make any sense”, said management: with a R6m discrepancy, it was too inaccurate to be used. He was instructed to rectify that report and deliver monthly updated reports so the company could know what was happening on the site.
But the next report was just as bad and by the end the company had brought in other quantity surveyors to help with a final account. After they re-measured the whole project, it became clear Madonsela had not done his job, and that there were serious losses on the project that the company could not recover because by then it was too late.
As for Madonsela, he told the CCMA he’d done the best he could, and blamed some of the losses on theft of material at the site.
In her ruling, the arbitrator found the company’s figures on the losses were “thumb-sucked”. The mall was handed over to the client within the specified time and operated without any structural malfunctions. This, she said, proved the employee was competent and acquitted himself (well).
‘No understanding of the issues’
However, labour court judge Connie Prinsloo said the arbitrator’s findings showed she “had no understanding of the issues she had to decide”. The fact that the mall was completed on time was “irrelevant” to the charges and the dismissal. The arbitrator should have considered the issue she was supposed to decide: was Madonsela guilty of misconduct by failing to obey a direct instruction to submit monthly cost reports, thus causing a financial loss to the company that it could not recover?
Against all this evidence the arbitrator’s decision was not reasonable, said Prinsloo. Clearly, the arbitrator had lost sight of the issue she had to decide, and had misdirected herself by finding Madonsela was competent based on the success of the mall.
Given that misdirection, Prinsloo said the original award should be set aside. As she had the full record of events, she said it was in the interests of justice that she decide the matter immediately herself rather than order a new hearing, particularly as the dispute had dragged on for several years.
Finding that Madonsela had indeed committed misconduct, she replaced the original award with an order that the dismissal was both substantively and procedurally fair.
With a R6m discrepancy, Madonsela’s first report was too inaccurate to be used