Labour Court grills greedy CT transport execs for ‘pure dishonesty’

The Labour Court in Cape Town has slammed three executives for being dishonest.

The three - BG Ncube‚ Andre Erasmus and Christy Prins - were found by the court to have been dishonest in their conduct when they allowed manual alterations on their employment contracts to be made‚ which increased their annual and monthly total costs to company.

The three are former taxi operators in Cape Town and were employed by Kidrogen‚ a company that was started by taxi operators and is currently running the City of Cape Town’s integrated rapid transport services‚ MyCiTi.

An agreement reached by the city and the taxi operators said operators who relinquished their vehicle licences in exchange for equity in the company would be hired as top management.

The three were appointed to senior executive positions in Kidrogen. Ncube was the chief executive officer‚ Erasmus the chief financial officer and Prins the chief operating officer.

On their contracts‚ the annual package for each of them was R1‚025‚434.32. This amount was scratched out and an amount of R1‚115‚764.20 was written by hand.

For their monthly earnings‚ the three scratched out the R78‚879.56 that was originally printed on the contract and replaced it with R92‚980.35‚ also written by hand.

Defending their actions‚ Prins told the court that the alteration was made because the package on the contract did not include some of the benefits to which they were entitled.

After making these alterations‚ the three never took their employment contracts to the company’s board for approval. This is one of the facts that made Judge Robert Lagrange rule that they had unlawfully enriched themselves.

“I am satisfied that the respondents were not entitled to the various payments mentioned in the charges for which they were dismissed and that overall their conduct in receiving all those payments was dishonest and warranted their dismissal‚” said La Grange in his judgment.

The three were dismissed following an internal disciplinary hearing‚ which found them guilty of gross dishonesty.

The hearing found that they unlawfully and dishonestly enriched themselves by receiving salaries higher than what they were entitled to‚ back-pay in varying amounts in October 2014‚ "13th cheques" in December 2013 and December 2014‚ as well as a discretionary bonus.

Following their dismissal‚ they launched an appeal through the Commission for Conciliation‚ Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA)‚ which found that their dismissal was procedurally unfair because the chairperson refused to recuse himself after they had laid a complaint against him concerning his alleged intoxication.

The arbitrator added that the three were made executive directors without any experience and had relied heavily on advice from the City of Cape Town and various other experts. They were awarded six months of remuneration as compensation.

The company then launched a Labour Court application to have the findings of the CCMA reviewed and it was successful in doing so. In its application‚ it argued that on the evidence before the arbitrator‚ she could not have reasonably concluded that the three were not dishonest.

The company said as it was alleged by the three that the amendments they made were to rectify an error in their contracts‚ their conduct in doing so could not reasonably be construed as mere negligence‚ incompetence or poor corporate governance but must instead be seen as pure dishonesty.