Court upholds axing of Kidrogen bosses
The dismissal of three former senior executives of Kidrogen‚ which runs the City of Cape Town’s MyCiTi bus service, was justified due to their dishonesty, the Labour Court in Cape Town has ruled.
The court found that the former executives — BG Ncube‚ Andre Erasmus and Christy Prins — had acted dishonestly by manually altering their employment contracts to increase their annual and monthly total costs to company.
Ncube‚ Erasmus and Prins are former Cape Town taxi operators and were employed by Kidrogen‚ a company that was started by taxi operators and is running the City of Cape Town’s MyCiTi integrated rapid transport services.
In terms of an agreement between the city and the taxi bosses, operators who relinquished their vehicle licences in exchange for equity in the company would be hired as top management. The three were appointed to senior executive positions: Ncube as CEO‚ Erasmus as CFO and Prins as COO.
Their contracts stipulated the annual package for each of them as R1‚025‚434.32.
This amount was scratched out on each contract and replaced by a handwritten amount of R1‚115‚764.20.
For their monthly earnings‚ the three each scratched out the original amount of R78‚879.56 on the contracts and replaced it with R92‚980.35.
Prins testified that the alteration had been made because the package on the contract did not include some of the benefits to which they were entitled.
After making these alterations‚ the three did not submit the contracts to the company’s board for approval.
Judge Robert Lagrange ruled that they had unlawfully enriched themselves through these actions.
“I am satisfied that the respondents were not entitled to the various payments mentioned in the charges for which they were dismissed and that overall their conduct in receiving all those payments was dishonest and warranted their dismissal‚” Lagrange ruled.
The three had been dismissed following an internal disciplinary hearing‚ which found them guilty of gross dishonesty. It was found at the hearing that they had unlawfully and dishonestly enriched themselves by receiving salaries higher than what they were entitled to‚ back-pay in varying amounts in October 2014‚ 13th cheques in December 2013 and December 2014‚ as well as a discretionary bonus.
Following their dismissal‚ they launched an appeal through the Commission for Conciliation‚ Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).
The CCMA found that their dismissal had been procedurally unfair because the chair refused to recuse himself after they had laid a complaint concerning his alleged intoxication.
They were awarded six months’ remuneration as compensation. Kidrogen subsequently launched the successful Labour Court application to have the CCMA findings reviewed.