Call for release of ‘sex for jobs’ report
A FORMER Bhisho legislature employee who was fired for alleging some senior administration bosses at the institution were having sex with juniors and interns in exchange for promotions, is demanding the release of the legislature’s “sex for jobs” investigation report.
Dismissed legislature whistleblower Luzuko Kerr Hoho, outed author of the once-anonymous Father Punch newsletter, last week wrote to the institution demanding that the report be publicly released.
Hoho yesterday confirmed writing to the institution, saying the release of the report would strengthen his Labour Court Appeal challenging his 2012 dismissal.
Hoho wrote to administration head Vuyani Mapolisa and speaker Noxolo Kiviet demanding the Neela Hoosain Commission report be made public.
Hoho, a former ANC underground operative employed as a researcher, was found guilty of compiling the controversial poison-pen newsletter dubbed Father Punch.
In the newsletter he anonymously accused various members of the legislature, provincial politicians and senior civil servants, of embezzlement, corruption, bribery and fraud.
He also accused some senior civil servants of using their positions to solicit sexual favours from junior employees.
The Bhisho High Court later convicted Hoho on 22 charges of criminal defamation and sentenced him to three years imprisonment, a sanction suspended for five years.
Internal processes kicked in during October 2011, with the legislature charging him for bringing the institution into disrepute and for failing to comply with a written instruction to desist from disseminating “abusive information”.
He was found guilty and dismissed.
In the wake of Hoho’s claims, and at the insistence of a labour union at the institution, Kiviet sanctioned an investigation into allegations of sex for jobs, flouting of recruitment policies, alleged corruption and nepotism.
The commission found irregularities as claimed, and implicated three senior administrators.
The three – integrated human resources management general manager (GM) in the legislature Malibongwe Ngcai; GM for strategy, policy, monitoring and evaluation Phumlani Basil Mase; and former administration head Pumelele Ndamase – took the matter to court in a bid to prevent the institution from making the report public.
In an ironic twist, despite the administrators asking the court in December 2015 to prevent the institution from making the Hoosain report public, it entered the public domain when they submitted it as part of their supporting court documents in their failed bid to suppress the report.
Ngcai and Mase have since been suspended for taking the institution to court, while Ndamase resigned and has been sworn in as an ANC MPL.
While the Hoosain report implicated the trio, they stated in their court papers that they were never confronted and given an opportunity to respond to allegations that they had used their seniority to solicit sexual favours from junior employees. They all denied the allegations. Mapolisa yesterday said he had closed office on December 9 and had not seen Hoho’s letter.
“Maybe we will find it when we open for the new year,” he said, adding the disciplinary cases of the two suspended administration bosses was still ongoing. — asandan@dispatch.co.za