Mungo Soggot
SACKED Transnet executive director Sipho Nyawo has launched a legal attack against the parastatal, Public Enterprises Minister Stella Sigcau and the retired judge who presided over an internal inquiry about him.
Nyawo was dismissed from his R830 000 job last year after Judge John Trengove found him guilty of 65 charges of credit card abuse, involving about R50 000.
Papers filed in court show Nyawo has applied to have his dismissal set aside for several procedural reasons. He does not broach the charges against him, but asks for his dismissal to be withdrawn and for his salary since his dismissal.
He says he currently has no source of income, making it “a matter of urgency that this application be determined”.
Nyawo abused his credit card while he was Portnet’s environment manager in Durban. He says Transnet chairman Louise Tager’s assurance that the investigation into him was dropped when he moved to head office in Johannesburg – confirmed in a letter attached to his affidavit – meant the parastatal had no authority to reinstate the inquiry as it did.
The parastatal pulled the plug on investigations into widespread credit-card abuse among executives, but reinstated them when one of its employees’ unions approached the public protector.
Nyawo claims he was denied his right to be heard, denied a hearing by the Transnet board and that neither Tager nor the Transnet board applied her or their minds to the question of his dismissal.