Denied job for R100 ‘illegal gathering’ fine
A FORMER activist has been denied a job by Statistics SA because of the anti-apartheid “crime” in 1983 of “illegal gathering” for which he was sentenced to a fine of R100 or 200 days, suspended for four years.
StatsSA blocked Peter Mentoor, 58, from a fieldworker job after a background check revealed his conviction of a politically motivated “crime”.
ANC acting provincial chairperson Khaya Magaxa expressed his shock at Mentoor’s predicament and said the party would launch a probe.
“We’ve got legal representatives who will look at his case and we will challenge it through them,” said Magaxa.
An angry Mentoor said he was convicted for contravening the apartheid-era “Gatherings Act” while protesting in Mitchells Plain alongside fellow activist Theresa Solomons, who was arrested and convicted with him. She was later elected mayor of Cape Town in the democratic era.
Another fellow Mitchells Plain activist of the 1980s, Trevor Trevor Oosterwyk, detained under apartheid, is now StatsSA spokesperson. He said he knew Mentoor and had been made aware of his case, and would probe the matter.
“We do criminal checks and get it from crime intelligence and do not make a distinction with the kind of offences,” he said.
Department of Justice and Constitutional Development provincial head Hishaam Mohamed said former activists convicted for contravening apartheid laws should not be prevented from taking up work in the civil service.
“These acts are no longer regarded as prohibitions for employment purposes. A political offence should not be taken into account when one is considered for employment and he should take it up with (Statistician-General) Pali Lehohla,” said Mohamed.
Mentoor had been a 24-yearold activist and a recent BCom graduate in management science from UWC when he dedicated himself to political activism. He went on to become a schoolteacher in Bonteheuwel and later served the community again as a clergyman after obtaining a Master’s degree in theology.
In 1998 he took early retirement and went to work for the Western Province Council of Churches, then worked as a branch manager at the Red Door small business development initiative in Table View and later as a contract worker for the Small Enterprise Development Agency. He subsequently became a freelance consultant.
“In May last year I saw the advert from StatsSA asking people to register on their database for selection as fieldworkers for the Community Census. I registered and a month ago received a call to confirm if I was still available for training on February 15,” said Mentoor.
He later received a phone call from an official at StatsSA telling him that training had been postponed to February 22.
But three days after he started training at the Claremont hall, an official quietly took him to one side.
“The guy gave me a letter with one line, stating that I resign from StatsSA training because I have a criminal record,” said Mentoor.
Confused, Mentoor questioned how his “criminal record” could be used against him when he had previously been employed without any incident.
“As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have criminal record. I asked the guy ‘ how’ and he told me it was for something that happened in the 1980s.
“I told him those were the ‘Struggle years’, I remember an ‘illegal gathering’, but for me that was not a criminal act,” said Mentoor.
He refused to sign his letter of resignation and instead demanded to write at the back of it his reasons for refusing.
“I wrote that political activity was criminalised in the 1980s and I was found guilty for attending an illegal gathering because we protested at the rent office in Eastridge (Mitchells Plain).
“The funny thing is the people who were found guilty with me (include) Theresa Solomons and Lucille Meyer,” said Mentoor.
Instead of quitting, he continued his training and went back on Monday when he and his fellow enumerators had to go for a field run.
Mentoor said: “On Wednesday morning the facilitator called me to one side, apologised and said StatsSA’s human resources office had called him, saying ‘you cannot be part of Community Census 2016 because of a criminal record’.
“I had to hand over the tablet computer they had issued to me.” quinton.mtyala@inl.co.za
@mtyala