Old Mutual right to fire 'deceitful' former envoy

Old Mutual fired a former ambassador for dishonesty and negligence, it has emerged in a Labour Court judgment.

Pandelani Mathoma, who was South Africa's ambassador to Mali for four years until 2007, paid more than R900,000 for two reports which Old Mutual said contained a "significant proportion of plagiarised material" and website content. Only two pages contained original work.

The financial services giant said Mathoma ignored procurement processes when he ordered the reports from a professor, and authorised payments of three different versions of an invoice before even seeing the first report.

A disciplinary-hearing charge against Mathoma said: "You incurred liability of over R900,000 in 2011 for work which was both unnecessary and of poor quality ... and without the knowledge or approval of your seniors."

Old Mutual appealed to the Labour Court in Johannesburg after the CCMA found Mathoma's dismissal procedurally and substantively unfair.

Judge Portia Nkutha-Nkontwana awarded Mathoma three months' salary for procedural unfairness but said Old Mutual was right to fire the former general manager of corporate affairs, who since his dismissal in 2013 has been CEO of Pandelani Investment Holdings, according to his LinkedIn profile.

The judge said Mathoma was evasive, argumentative and illogical in giving his evidence to the court.

"I am convinced that [his] conduct was deceitful," she said in her judgment this month.

"Old Mutual ... is not unreasonable in expecting its senior manager to exercise a high standard of care and to demonstrate utmost good faith in dealings."