Ann Eveleth
A BIZARRE, long-running row split the management at South Africa’s main nuclear waste dump in the months leading up to the discovery of radioactive leaks at the site.
Kappie Steyn, head of the Vaalputs site for 11 years, was pushed from his post last December after what his wife says was a six-year battle – involving allegations of theft, sex romps and insanity – with staff bent on ousting him.
The Atomic Energy Corporation (AEC) transferred Steyn to its Pretoria headquarters, despite his attempts to halt the move through the Labour Court, and he quit the corporation in February with a R100 000 pay-off.
His transfer came three months after the Council for Nuclear Safety halted new shipments into Vaalputs, following the discovery of leaks at the Northern Cape site.
The AEC this week denied any connection between Steyn’s departure and the leaks, adding that Steyn had left its employ “voluntarily”. Steyn was sworn to secrecy as part of his severance deal.
But his wife, Suzanne, claimed he had been the victim of a “conspiracy” by three people at Vaalputs since 1990, including the man whom Steyn beat to the management post in 1986.
The allegations paint a disturbing picture of internal management at Vaalputs – whose main task is to protect the public from radioactive waste.
“First they said he stole money, then he was cleared by an internal inquiry. Then they stole his master key and a few thousand rands worth of stuff went missing,” Suzanne Steyn said. “Later a physicist from AEC was transferred to Vaalputs and he told a psychiatrist a lot of nonsense about Kappie.
“When he complained to the AEC that some members of his staff were having affairs in the laboratory, the AEC official told the people what he said. AEC tried to dismiss Kappie in July 1995, but an internal inquiry overturned it. They said he had to see a psychiatrist because he can’t work with people.”
She said her husband had subsequently been declared “normal” by three psychiatrists, but that one of his opponents was later declared “medically unfit”, while another had suffered a nervous breakdown.
“I made a number of complaints to the AEC about what was happening to my husband and I was told in October 1995 by (an AEC manager) that if I didn’t let things drop, he would see my family suffered,” she said.
“A week later Kappie was called to transfer to Pretoria to an undefined job in an isolated office under the toilets.”
She also claimed the AEC had initially tried to tie the whole Steyn family into secrecy as part of his pay-off.
Responding to Mail & Guardian questions, the AEC played down the role of “personnel dynamics” in Vaalputs’s current problems. These include the leakage of low-level radioactive waste from 22 containers corroded “after almost 10 years of atmospheric exposure”, said a representative, Sam Shakong.
The AEC has still to determine how containers of more dangerous waste also failed. It has previously blamed the weather.