Parliament boss in bursaries bonanza row

Gengezi Mgidlana, the secretary to parliament, has awarded himself a bursary to study for a master's degree after turning down 50 junior staffers' applications, claiming the legislature had run out of funds.

It has also emerged that Unathi Mtya, parliament's new head of information technology, who joined the legislature in August last year under questionable circumstances, has been granted a R1.1-million bursary to study at Columbia University in New York for a postgraduate qualification.

However, when she joined parliament she was expected to have a similar qualification before being appointed, said sources at the institution.

Mgidlana is accused of turning parliament's bursary fund into a "self-empowerment scheme" for his inner circle of senior managers, to the detriment of junior staff.

Parliament's management told junior officials this week that the institution did not have enough money to fund their studies for degrees, some of which cost R20,000 a year.

The Sunday Times has seen documents showing that senior managers earning between R1-million and R2.8-million had been prioritised for funding.

Disgruntled employees said it was outrageous for executive management to claim that there was no money to fund junior staffers' studies when Mgidlana, who earns R2.8-million a year, and other senior officials had been awarded bursaries.

Parliament will pay R30,743 towards Mgidlana's master of business leadership degree at Unisa, but his name was omitted from a list of beneficiaries in an attempt to keep this secret, according to staff.

Sources said a prerequisite for Mtya's appointment was that she have a postgraduate degree, according to the advertised job specification.

Mtya, who earns R1.6-million a year, lists in her CV a BSc in computer science and an executive programme certificate from the Gordon Institute of Business Science.

Parliament spokesman Moloto Mothapo said the certificate made her eligible for the position because it was recognised at level 8 in terms of the National Qualifications Framework.

Parliament's bursary committee approved 159 applications, but these were reduced to 109 by the executive management committee led by Mgidlana, said sources at the institution.

Mothapo said only 50 staff members had been awarded bursaries, and Mgidlana and Mtya had been the only senior managers granted study funding.

A junior official, whose application for funding to study for an entry-level qualification at the University of the Western Cape was turned down, accused parliament's management of unfair practices.

"I feel so devastated because information has leaked about one lady in management who is getting a bursary of R1-million. So right now I am stuck, I don't know whether I should go to the bank or not," he said.

Another official, who wanted to study law, said: "That R1-million going to one person would have accommodated a lot of staff. How do you deny workers and prioritise the top guys? It gives credence to the criticism that management are empowering each other at the expense of workers."

Mothapo said Mtya was not being sent to New York by the national legislature.

Mtya had already been accepted by Columbia, where she was going to be sponsored by her previous employer, the State Information Technology Agency, he said.

Mothapo denied that Mtya had been awarded a R1.1-million bursary by parliament.

Mothapo said that, after benchmarking Mtya's New York university with local institutions, parliament only agreed to assist her with R200,000, which had not yet been paid out.

Mtya would be paying the balance from her own pocket, he added.

"Since parliament has a similar scheme for its employees, one of the mutually agreed terms and conditions pertaining to her employment was that she would, like any employee of parliament, benefit from the institution's bursary fund.

"This sought to ensure that her plans to further her studies were not unduly prejudiced by her joining parliament. Of course, the cost for a master's programme at Columbia would not be the same as that of a local university, but that will not come at any additional cost to parliament," he said.

Mothapo also said there was nothing irregular about Mgidlana benefiting from parliament's bursary scheme.

Not all staff members could be accommodated as "no budget is bottomless", he said.

"Mr Mgidlana's situation is not different to that of Ms Mtya in that when parliament engaged him in 2014, he was pursuing his MBL at Unisa under the bursary fund of his previous employer," said Mothapo.

mokonet@sundaytimes.co.za