Uniform scam costs man job

A school uniform has cost a father the job he had held for 15 years.

Simon Ramapuputla, a shop steward at safety equipment supplier G Fox & Co, colluded with his child's school to submit an inflated quote for the uniform, a court in Johannesburg has found.

Instead of claiming R627, Ramapuputla asked the company's skills equity committee - of which he was a member - for R3500.

Ramapuputla was fired for dishonesty and approached the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, which said his dismissal was too harsh in light of his clean employment record.

G Fox owners Bidserv appealed and Judge Violet Phatshoane found in its favour last week in the Labour Appeal Court.

Phatshoane was critical of Ramapuputla and Lota Mahlabane, deputy principal of Mmutle Combined School in Mpumalanga, saying "the contradictions and obfuscations apparent in their evidence are significant".

" His evidence was correctly rejected by the commissioner as resembling a bad storyline in a movie. The probabilities are overwhelming against Ramapuputla that he knowingly, in collaboration with his cohorts at the school, submitted a false quotation," the judge said.