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Nehawu: Nehawu dismisses rubbish claims of political agenda against secretary to Parliament

Nehawu: Nehawu dismisses rubbish claims of political agenda against secretary to Parliament

18th May 2016

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Parliament branch of Nehawu rubbishes claims that it has a ‘political agenda’ against the Secretary to Parliament. The claim which was made in a media statement Parliament issued on Saturday 14 May 2016 seeks to undermine the calls to investigate allegations of financial mismanagement by the institution’s Secretary and his suspension.  Parliament’s statement is a mere diversion from the real matters at hand and will not deter the workers in their quest for accountability and transparency. The Secretary to Parliament is not a politician and has never been one, he therefore has no grounds to cry ‘political agenda’ when he has to face the music.  Our call for his suspension is standard practice when a person in a position of influence is suspected of any wrongdoing. They step aside to allow investigation to proceed unhindered.

The said allegations involve the R1.8 million the Secretary and his team spent on the so called benchmarking study to London, Scotland and Sweden Parliaments around the same time workers were fighting for performance bonuses. The Union remains concerned that normal authorisation processes were not properly followed for these trips. What also of grave concern to the workers is that the reports of the so called benchmarking exercise leave much to be desired – they appear to have been prepared as result of the City Press expose which questioned these trips.

One other matter to be investigated is the fact that the Secretary received a payment of a R71 000 Ex-Gratia bonus, just four months after his arrival in Parliament. The Ex-Gratia was meant to compensate workers who suffered sustained consequences of a workplace that does not offer a 13th Cheque to its employees. The workers find it incomprehensible that a person who earns over R2.5 million would want to unduly benefit from a process meant to uplift the working conditions of the struggling workers.

The same Secretary to Parliament gave himself the same 9% salary increase workers of Parliament fought for and ultimately received for the 2015/16 financial year. He again gave himself an 8.4 % salary increase for the current year. This is just a percentage less than the 9.4 % workers in the bargaining unit received. It is clear to the union that the Secretary makes decisions on the basis of ‘entitlement’ rather than being considerate of material conditions such as the country’s financial position as well as the importance of narrowing salary gaps between high earning top management and low earning workers.

It is this disturbing, self-centred and incorrigible conduct that the workers of Parliament call upon the Presiding Officers to institute an investigation into these allegations and suspend the Secretary as a matter of urgency, otherwise the workers will be left with no choice but to approach the Public Protector. It must also be known that approaching the Public Protector would mean the scope of investigation will extend to all areas in Parliament, areas such as Procurement, Finance and HR ,among others because we have always held a view that there are many skeletons in this Parliament.

The Secretary to Parliament has also treated with disdain all collective agreements entered into and for this workers want him dismissed from Parliament. This is an apex institution that should be exemplary and can not afford to have a CEO who has no appetite of addressing worker issues and ultimately restore stability and the pride of the institution. To date, the implementation of the March 2015 Agreement is yet to be realised. This Agreement was meant to improve conditions of service for the workers. Had it not been for the intervention of the Presiding Officers and Nehawu President who entered into an Agreement in December 2015, all workers of Parliament would not have received their last year performance bonuses. Even on this account, the Secretary displayed his exceeding levels of arrogance by not pay all deserving employees and those who got paid received monies lower than they deserved because the Secretary unilaterally reduced the performance ratings. As if this was not enough, he again undermined the agreement reached by Presiding Officers and Nehawu President which places a moratorium on the ‘No Work No Pay deductions’ and calls for the reversal of already deducted monies. In this regard, he has consistently refused to reimburse the monies he took from the workers in February and while he did not deduct in March, April and May, he intends resuming with deductions in June when MPs will be on recess. 

Nehawu also has it on good authority that the Secretary to Parliament is busy sourcing external candidates that will preside over Disciplinary Hearings targeted at the Branch leadership of Nehawu in Parliament for their role during the 2015 industrial action. These Chairpersons, once appointed, will commence with their duties during recess away from the glare of the MPs. Since they will paid by Parliament, their mandate will be to ensure dismissal of Union leadership. Once more this action, if it will ever see the light of day, will fly in the face of the December Agreement which said there should be no victimisation and unequivocally said no one should be dismissed.

Workers in Parliament have had enough of a Secretary that is detached from reality and are appealing to his bosses to relieve him of his duties; otherwise Parliament will degenerate into an undesirable workplace, thereby depriving people of South Africa the quality service they deserve. As an affiliate of COSATU which in alliance with the ruling party, NEHAWU believes there are more than competent people the ANC can deploy to steer this of Parliament.

Anything short of suspending and ultimately dismissing the Secretary to Parliament will compel the workers to move into an unviable position of embarking on an industrial action that would only be terminated through the realisation of the Secretary’s removal.

 

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