Defence department ordered to halt unlawful deductions from colonel's salary

The Department of Defence has been ordered to stop unlawfully deducting more than R20‚000 a month from a colonel’s salary.

Colonel Iqram Bux‚ the commanding officer of 2 Military Hospital in Wynberg‚ went to the labour court in Cape Town in an attempt to stop the deductions‚ which began in December 2017 and continued until May — involving a total of R122‚388.

The Department of Defence said Bux was incorrectly upgraded in 2009 and again in 2012‚ and had been overpaid for all that time.

Its chief financial officer wrote to Bux in October 2017 informing him the Secretary of Defence had approved deductions from his salary to recoup the overpayments.

Judge Anton Steenkamp ruled that the Department of Defence was bound by the Basic Conditions of Employment Act‚ which prohibits deductions without an agreement with the affected employee‚ a court order or an arbitration award.

And he quoted one of his own judgments from 2016 — later confirmed by the Constitutional Court — finding that a clause in the Public Service Act permitting deductions was unconstitutional.

Despite the ConCourt confirmation‚ he said‚ the Department of Defence had persisted in fighting Bux’s court application — something that was “difficult to fathom”.

As well as interdicting the department from making further deductions from Bux’s salary or pension fund‚ he ordered it to pay the colonel’s legal costs.