A Limpopo principal who bypassed official procurement policies to buy school items on credit has failed to have a sanction of two months’ suspension without pay set aside.
The arbitrator at the Education Labour Relations Council, in an award made on Monday, dismissed a referral made by Sape Makebe Mack, the principal of Mohlodumela Primary School.
Arbitrator Seretse Masete was called to determine whether the sanction of two months suspension without salary imposed on the employee was harsh and whether it amounted to an unfair labour practice.
Testifying before the arbitrator on March 12, the principal, who has been in the department’s employ since January 1991, agreed he breached the procurement policies by buying school items on credit and by not seeking three quotations as required.
Mack said he did not benefit from the transactions and the department did not suffer any financial loss.
He said he acted in that manner because there was no money at the school.
He said the norms and standards funds were depleted and he could not allow everything to come to a stop, hence he used his money and bought the items on credit. The norms and standards funding refers to the government money allocated to public schools to cover their basic running costs, such as books, stationery, municipal services, maintenance and school administration costs.
The Limpopo education department called on Edgar Ramodumo — the initiator of the disciplinary action — who testified that Mack was a principal and should have known better.
The sanction of two months’ suspension without salary was therefore a progressive discipline because it is a sanction short of dismissal.
— Arbitrator Seretse Masete
Ramodumo said schools were not allowed to buy items on credit and Mack had a tendency of using his money to buy school items and later refunding himself from the school fees. Ramodumo said such conduct was not allowed in the schools within the Limpopo education department.
He said the procurement policies were designed to avoid corruption during procurement processes. Ramodumo said Mack had committed such offences on different occasions.
Pleading guilty was not a sign of showing remorse but because Mack realised that the evidence against him was overwhelming. Mack further failed to produce documents pertaining to the purchase of the items requested by the department, Ramodumo said.
This was one of the reasons the department could not choose the sanction of a final written warning, but imposed two months’ suspension without salary.
He said the department was lenient because some of the sanctions it could have chosen included three months’ suspension without salary or dismissal.
In his award, Masete said procurement policies within government institutions served to ensure transparency, accountability and the prevention of irregular expenditure.
Breaching such policies was serious because it would open the gates for corruption and that was why the department imposed the sanction of two months’ suspension without salary.
“The sanction should serve as a deterrence even to those who anticipate to commit similar misconducts in the future because such misconduct has a potential harm to the [department’s] business,” Masete said.
The arbitrator said there were various mitigating factors, including that Mack pleaded guilty and there was no evidence he personally benefited from the procurement transaction.
“The sanction of two months’ suspension without salary was therefore a progressive discipline because it is a sanction short of dismissal.
“The employer could have imposed a sanction of dismissal because this kind of a misconduct carries a dismissible sanction depending on the merits of each case.”
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