The ethics end of the wedge

His latest conflation of the personal and professional was a step too far for labour's DG, writes Chris Barron

Jimmy Manyi, the suspended Department of Labour director-general, has been exposed by the Norwegians as an opportunist.

Even before this happened, though, if there were any senior black executives, let alone white ones, who still took Manyi seriously, they stopped doing so when he launched his extraordinary attack on Futhi Mtoba after she was elected president of Business Unity South Africa.

Mtoba is black and a woman and a chartered accountant, but instead of applauding her, Manyi - president of the Black Management Forum, which supposedly exists to promote such achievements - screamed that the election of this highly impressive individual was anti-transformation.

Even for those accustomed to Manyi's illogical and vindictive outbursts, this remark was so patently unfair and absurd that it precipitated an immediate backlash. Realising that this time he'd gone too far, Manyi back-pedalled furiously. Suddenly she was hailed as a champion of transformation.

Typically, there was no admission of error on his part, let alone apology. In fact, Manyi's response to Mtoba's election was much worse than just an error of judgment. It betrayed a lack of principle.

The real reason he objected to her election had nothing to do with transformation and everything to do with politics. The fact is, she had beaten President Jacob Zuma's, and therefore Manyi's man, Sandile Zungu, to this potentially influential post.

Manyi is a slavish Zuma supporter, something that got him into trouble with the BMF. He told a meeting of black business professionals in the run-up to the elections that the BMF, which is supposedly apolitical, was behind the ANC. There were rumblings from the board, with at least one member accusing him of selling the BMF's soul.

There were further inconsistencies when he campaigned vigorously for re-election as president of the BMF after accepting the job of labour DG. After going on and on about the rich surplus of black skills ready to fill top posts, he said he had accepted re-election because there was nobody else suitably qualified to do the job. If any other executive, white or black, had made such a comment, he would have accused them of out-and-out racism.

At best, his pretence that there was no conflict of interest between his job as DG of labour and president of the BMF raised questions about his understanding of the concept. As the managing director of the BMF remarked before Manyi's re-election, how many members of the BMF would dare criticise the government when their own president was a senior member of that government?

Manyi said he had "accepted" re-election in a way which implied he had been begged to stand and had only agreed out of a selfless sense of duty to the organisation. In fact he fought tooth and nail to be re-elected. And then rewarded the senior BMF person who had led his campaign by ensuring his appointment as chairman of Productivity SA, ignoring due procedure and the claims of five other candidates.

Here again, his insistence that only someone with the right qualifications could preside over the BMF did not extend to Productivity SA, which some might argue has an even more important role to play than the BMF.

Those who know the candidates for the top job at Productivity SA say the man he shoe-horned into the position was probably the least qualified.

A vociferous champion of business ethics and the dignity of black employees, Manyi's role in the recent funding crisis at the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration has yet to be properly examined.

The CCMA gave the government ample warning of a budgetary shortfall that would require a top-up. If extra money did not arrive in time, it would not be able to pay its employees their salaries, it warned. The money was paid by the Treasury to the Department of Labour, where director-general Manyi sat on it in the face of persistent pleas by CCMA chief executive Nerine Kahn.

She eventually had to travel to Pretoria and sit outside his office before he signed the money over to the CCMA, by which time it was too late to pay the salaries.

Kahn has done a brilliant job leading the CCMA out of the doldrums it was in when she took over four years ago, but an impeccable source at the CCMA believes Manyi deliberately "sabotaged" her to make her look bad because he "doesn't like organisations headed by a white person".

Apparently the two clashed frequently over "performance issues" and because "he doesn't like being challenged".

Questions about Manyi's integrity were also raised in parliament recently.

It emerged he had requested a R1-billion addition to the labour department's budget and then sent urgent e-mails to senior officials ordering them to inflate their budgets to legitimise the request. The Democratic Alliance MP who exposed the secret e-mails accused him of "lying to parliament to get more taxpayers' money".

The minister of labour, Membathisi Mdladlana, confessed to being "embarrassed" by Manyi's behaviour and ordered him to apologise to parliament. He never did.

Manyi's refusal to apologise to parliament was not the only time he ignored instructions from his minister.

When the predictable conflicts of interest between his roles as DG and BMF president became too frequent and glaring to be ignored, Mdladlana ordered Manyi to choose one job or the other.

Manyi announced with typical arrogance that his head was big enough for two hats and that he had no intention of relinquishing either job.

Earlier in his career, Manyi acquired considerable clout by playing to the popular gallery as chairman of the Commission for Employment Equity, threatening "white" companies with dire consequences if they didn't accelerate the appointment of black people to top jobs.

He was soon offered a top job at Tiger Brands, as head of corporate affairs. It was amusing to note how instantly quiet the normally trigger-happy Manyi became when this "white" company was found guilty of price-fixing.

When the disgraced CEO was fired, Manyi presumptuously - given his lack of any obvious qualifications for it - applied for the job. Board members were both amused and horrified.

Miffed when the abundantly qualified Peter Matlare got the top job instead, Manyi left for government service.

Perhaps it is a measure of his clout that Mdladlana consistently refused to discipline him. And, now that he has, the chairman of the portfolio committee on labour, Lumka Yengeni, has made it clear she will fight for his reinstatement.

As for the reason behind his suspension, presumably Manyi - understandably reluctant to be interviewed on the matter by Business Times - has said elsewhere that he was only trying to explain to the Norwegians how BEE worked.

Unfortunately, the Norwegians saw it as an attempt to further his private business interests and sent a formal letter of complaint to the Department of International Relations.

Could there possibly have been a misunderstanding or a problem of interpretation, I asked the Norwegian embassy? "No," I was told.