Cape Town - Public Protector South Africa executive manager for investigations Ponatshego Mogaladi on Thursday stood her ground under cross-examination, saying she did not accept the guilty finding by a disciplinary hearing against her at the institution.
Mogaladi was being cross-examined in the Section 194 Committee by Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s legal counsel Advocate Dali Mpofu.
Mogaladi was found guilty on charges arising from an investigation report that was reviewed and set aside.
The presiding officer had imposed a sanction of suspension without pay for a period of three months and a final written warning for six months.
However, Mkhwebane disagreed with the sanction and dismissed Mogaladi, prompting her to take the matter to the Labour Court for review.
On Thursday, Mpofu asked if Mogaladi accepted the guilty finding of the chairperson of the disciplinary hearing and contested Mkhwebane’s intended sanction of dismissal.
Mogaladi confirmed that she did not challenge the guilty finding, but she and her colleague Lesedi Sekele did not agree with the guilty finding.
“There are various reasons we don’t agree with the guilty findings. There were certain points we raised in the hearing and they were not dealt with by the chairperson,” she said.
Mogaladi named consistency and selective discipline, as well as the presiding officer representing the institution in an arbitration matter as some of the reasons.
When Mpofu suggested that she did not challenge the guilty finding because she accepted responsibility for wrong-doing, Mogaladi insisted that there were several parts in the guilty finding they did not agree with.
“The fact that we did not challenge it does not make it correct. We felt it was better to focus on the sanction,” she said.
Asked if she had no remorse or had learnt anything from the disciplinary hearing, Mogaladi said the manner in which things happened was an opportunity to learn.
“It does not mean going through the process was to say I was wrong. Yes, there was an opportunity for us and the employer to learn from the process,” she said.
When Mpofu asked if she thought it was correct that due to wrong-doing on her part and her team, and because of their their inaction, Mkhwebane should be facing impeachment, Mogaladi said it was not for her to determine that question.
Cape Times