The axing of Parliament’s chief financial officer, Harry Charlton, followed a year of running battles with the institution’s top officials over the Travelgate investigation, and the implementation of competing software and consultancy contracts worth millions.
Discussions with parliamentary sources, documents obtained by the Mail & Guardian and an interview with the secretary to Parliament, Zingile Dingani, sketch a picture of an institution struggling with managerial transformation, and desperate to limit the damage from a widening travel fraud investigation, with Charlton an often uncomfortable presence at the heart of the turmoil. They also suggest a disciplinary procedure that is, at best, open to question.
Charlton first warned then-presiding officers, speaker Frene Ginwala, National Council of Provinces chair Naledi Pandor and secretary Sindiso Mfenyana about the abuse of MPs’ travel warrants in January 2003.
After they decided to pursue criminal and civil remedies, he remained a key figure in the investigation, helping liquidators and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to make sense of schemes by six travel agents and MPs to defraud Parliament of at least R17-million, possibly much more.
Dingani insists the disciplinary hearings have nothing to do with Travelgate: ”I don’t understand why no one recognises that [I] am rooting out corruption and mismanagement here.”
Nevertheless, suspicion persists among many that the disciplinary action is a pretext to get rid of Charlton and prevent further embarrassment.
It is clear that Dingani and Charlton differed sharply over the handling of the travel fraud. In July 2004, around the time of Bulelani Ngcuka’s resignation from the NPA, Dingani discussed with South African Police Service (SAPS) Commissioner Jackie Selebi moving the investigation from the Scorpions to the SAPS.
He believed — wrongly he now concedes — that Charlton had tipped off members of the Scorpions about the plan, and was furious. ”I spoke to Bulelani about it,” Dingani said. ”He told me it wasn’t true, and he wouldn’t lie.”
Others familiar with the investigations say they slowed down sharply after Dingani’s appointment, with Bathong Travel, used by many senior MPS, only reluctantly liquidated, and substantial new allegations not pursued.
Dingani disagrees: ”I have a letter from the current NPA head thanking me for my assistance.” As for newly uncovered fraud, he says: ”That has yet to be tested by a proper forensic investigation, so we can’t draw any conclusions.”
”What can Parliament do further?” he asked. ”It’s in the Scorpions’ hands.”
Charlton and his new boss clashed over more than Travelgate. Charlton was notified of his suspension in his office on November 18 by Dingani, accompanied by his legal adviser, Anthea Gordon, chief operations officer Tango Lamani and other senior members of the parliamentary service, along with police.
Two weeks later, after an investigation of documents and computer records, he was presented with 15 charges of misconduct centring on procedural irregularities and governance lapses connected with the procurement of software and consulting services.
The disciplinary hearing started on December 12, with Baba Schalk, who chairs the North West legislature, presiding.
Charlton was not allowed legal representation, because, Parliament argued, he was subject to procedures applying to regular employees rather than ”top management”.
He was entitled only to be represented by a fellow staff member or shop steward.
The two parliamentary staff members he did ask to represent him declined because, as members of the parliamentary legal service, they cannot act for colleagues.
Despite this, Parliament had two advocates on its team, with Gordon leading evidence against Charlton.
Dingani is adamant this was not unfair. ”There can be no new laws for Charlton,” he insisted. ”He’s not the first person to be dismissed. All those people use the same rules — he’s an educated person and stands the same chance as any cleaner, a better chance”.
However, Parliament was recently involved in negotiations with the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union over disciplinary policy, during which it stressed that the procedures invoked in Charlton’s case did not apply to staff of managerial grade.
The question of Charlton’s job grade is crucial because the most serious charges against him involve alleged breaches of his authorised spending limits, which are closely tied to his seniority and the authority delegated to him by Mfenyana.
The first set of charges relate to ongoing work on the ”Manqoba” software system, commissioned from Progress software during Mfenyana’s tenure, with Charlton leading the project.
Its main aim was to move Parliament from a cash-based accounting system to accrual accounting, and end the sequence of qualified opinions by the auditor general.
This system, and the Oracle-based ”Marang” platform that Dingani wanted to replace it, became the basis for protracted skirmishes.
It is common cause that Manqoba brought improvements, and that it was never made fully functional, but opinions diverge sharply on why.
Sources sympathetic to Charlton blame failures elsewhere in Parliament, notably the IT department. Dingani says assessments by a national Treasury official and Parliament’s outsourced internal audit unit concluded it was totally inadequate. That meant ditching Manqoba.
Nevertheless, in November 2004 Progress conducted an analysis of the system’s remaining shortcomings, identified a further R1,1-million customisation possibly required, and issued a report. The first three charges allege that in signing off on this report, Charlton entered a contract with Progress to do the additional work.
According to Schalk’s findings, a copy of which the M&G has obtained, Parliament’s division manager, corporate services, Mzi Mbangula, came across this document while devising a strategy to exit the Manqoba project.
Charlton argued at the hearing that it was not a contract, but a ”gap analysis report” in terms of the original 2003 agreement. Schalk appears to have disregarded this, saying ”the employee demonstrated a high level of dishonesty and deceit by concealing the existence of the contract”.
By early last year, tensions over the new Marang system were running high, with disputes over the availability of Charlton’s staff to work on Marang, his willingness to lend time to the project, and the quality of work of other managers.
Sources suggest Charlton and Mabangula repeatedly faced off over the project, with Charlton finding himself increasingly out of the loop.
Mabangula, however, told the hearing that Charlton’s reluctance led to delays and added costs of R3,9-million on Marang. The findings appear to take this figure at face value. Dingani also paints the former finance chief as a spoiler, saying he resisted Marang for no apparent reason.
Similar management clashes surround allegations that Charlton exceeded his authority by engaging the consultants who helped ensure that restructuring of the finance management office — which was desperately short of skills — could go ahead without a serious labour dispute.
The original idea was that the model developed by Charlton’s office could be rolled out to the rest of Parliament. But after Dingani’s appointment, an internal organisation development unit was set up, and it moved quickly to institute an alternative model, leading to further disagreements.
It appears from Schalk’s report and letters obtained by the M&G that both Parliament’s legal services department and Dingani were aware of the work the consultants were doing.
In one instance, Elizabeth Milne, of Milne Johnson Consulting, wrote to Dingani saying the restructuring project had been ”completely sabotaged”, asking to terminate her involvement and requesting a meeting to detail her concerns.
In subsequent letters Dingani asks her not to quit and assigns further recruitment consulting work directly to her. ”The post section manager: financial services must be filled by an African female … please commence the head-hunting and keep me informed of progress,” Dingani writes.
Despite this and other evidence, Schalk concluded that Charlton appointed her without a written contract to do work worth R1,1-million.
Much of the evidence at the disciplinary hearing reads like an ordinary tale of organisational instability and the difficulties that follow changes in the top ranks of a complex institution: turf battles, personality clashes, private agendas. And it is not in dispute that Parliament is still afflicted by governance weaknesses.
But this rises to the level of criminal misconduct — as Dingani has suggested — or is even grounds for dismissal, the question many are asking.
Travelgate is far from over, and there are strong indications that the investigation of Bathong and the other agencies may yield substantial new claims, and drag in high-profile figures. With that threat on the horizon, few in Parliament see Charlton’s fall as coincidence.
He was in Australia as the M&G went to press, and could not be reached for comment. But Schalk went out of his way to dismiss the idea: ”In resting his defence solely on the ‘Travelgate’ scandal, the employee was pursuing a mirage,” he wrote. ”He was not the whistleblower [and] relied on this subterfuge merely because he was unable to present a credible defence …”
Not everyone agrees. One member of the parliamentary service told the M&G: ”Very few people here know what’s going on. But all the news reports are being passed around, and there’s a feeling building that something isn’t right.”