Dismissed municipal worker wants job back

A dismissed employee of the Musina Local Municipality, Mr Walter Muraba, says that he will fight tooth and nail until he gets his job back.

Muraba's dismissal came after he had been accused of inciting residents to march in protest against the municipality on 25 April. He was further accused for taking part in a service-delivery protest against the municipality on 2 June.

“All those marches,” he said; “were in fact organised by the Musina Tax Payers Association.” Residents were protesting against the alleged “rampant corruption, maladministration and nepotism” within the municipality.

“They said that I was absent from work illegally on 29 and 30 May this year. This is incorrect, because I had applied for leave and it had been granted,” he said.

The Musina Local Municipality called Muraba in for a hearing in July. He was finally dismissed on 12 September following the findings of the hearing chairperson.

Muraba agreed that he had participated in the march on all those days but added that he had not brought the municipality into disrepute. “The investigations were ordered by an angry individual who had his own personal agenda of bringing me down,” he said; “this is a clear case of municipality management fighting political battles on behalf of some councillors.”

He stated that he had been fired even after the municipality had failed to bring in all its witnesses in the case against him. “My life is messed up now because I can hardly support my family,” he added; “and a noose of huge debts hangs round my neck. The municipality should reverse its decision. I need my job back.”

The spokesperson for Musina Local Municipality, Mr Wilson Dzebu, said that the municipality could only confirm that an internal disciplinary process had ensued following allegations of acts of misconduct and violation of the code of conduct by Moraba. “A disciplinary tribunal was held at which both parties led their evidence before a presiding officer,” Dzebu said; “and as guaranteed by the applicable disciplinary code and procedure the matter is currently under appeal, thus the matter is still subject to further processing by parties through internal mechanisms, thus rendering the matter sub-judice at this stage.”

He said that for fair administrative purposes, the municipality would not be in a position to comment further on the matter pending, due to internal processes.

The chairperson of the Musina Tax Payers Association, Mr Victor Madzivhandila, said that there was no fairness in how the case had been handled. “Moraba participated in a legal march and he was on leave,” he said. “His dismissal tells us all that municipal workers should only look away while the management is messing up the municipality with corruption. We are angry about the municipality's decision on Moraba's case and we are not sure how long we will be able to contain this anger.”

Date:24 October 2014

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

Read: 480