The report finds this was in breach of Numsa\u2019s constitution, which stipulates that all such deductions should be held by the union\u2019s national office.<\/p>\n
Section 25 of the Labour Relations Act (LRA) states that \u201cno agency fee deducted may be used for any expenditure that does not advance or protect the socioeconomic interests of employees\u201d.<\/p>\n
The inquiry was conducted by an internal Numsa commission that included regional treasurer Zama Silo, regional legal officer Bonginkosi Zulu and Port Elizabeth local secretary Bandla Mtshiselwa.<\/p>\n
Their report finds that:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Money plundered from the trust fund was used for \u201cbosberaads\u201d (the drowning of sorrows) and \u201cstress relief\u201d (the abuse and misuse of the agency fee).<\/li>\n
- In 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 the stewards\u2019 council forked out R12\u00a0000 for \u201cDecember farewell getaway parties\u201d with \u201crooms, braai and booze\u201d for stewards at the Formula One hotel in Port Elizabeth\u2019s upmarket Summerstrand area. The report says that at one of these events \u201ccomrade Trevor moered comrade Louis (full names unknown) with an empty of Klipdrift (brandy)\u201d.<\/li>\n
- Stewards paid themselves R100 to cover taxi fares after a night partying at the Waterford and Governor hotels in Uitenhage. \u201cThis was a decision of the committee,\u201d the report says. It adds that \u201ctwo or three got soccer tickets\u201d.<\/li>\n
- About R120\u00a0000 was spent on T-shirts for a wage strike in 2010.<\/li>\n
- In 2011 members of \u201cthe old committee\u201d made a lump-sum withdrawal and awarded themselves R4\u00a0000 each for what they code-named \u201clicences\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew we might not come back,\u201d a certain \u201ccomrade Nojokwe\u201d is quoted as saying. \u201cAnything about money we did not minute because we know we are making corruption. We took a position that we are going to deny it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Full financial audit<\/strong><\/p>\n
The report recommends that the regional executive orders a full financial audit to ascertain exactly what went into the account and how much was misspent.<\/p>\n
It also recommends the suspension of those implicated, pending the outcome of the audit.<\/p>\n
Regional officials Silo and Mtshiselwa declined to comment on whether any action had been taken. \u201cAs an organisation we\u2019re still looking into the matter,\u201d Silo said. \u201cWe\u2019ll table the report to the REC [regional executive committee], which will take a decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
The regional executive committee meeting will be held this weekend.<\/p>\n
The report says that three shop stewards, Xola Balfour, Mfundo Mpushe and Lucas Skhumbulo, refused to co-operate with the investigation.<\/p>\n
‘Unfounded allegations’<\/strong><\/p>\n
Balfour and Mpushe stonewalled questions, with Balfour saying: \u201cI don\u2019t deal with unfounded allegations, so I\u2019d rather not comment.\u201d Skhumbulo could not be contacted.<\/p>\n
Nelson Mandela Bay ANC councillor Wandisile Jikeka, who was a shop steward at Schnellecke at the time of the alleged corruption, denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
Jikeka, a former mayoral committee member who was dropped by current mayor Danny Jordaan, left the company in 2011.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know there was an agency fee at Schnellecke but as far as I know we never abused any money, because I was a full-time shop steward,\u201d he said this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t even know there was such a report, so let me check with Numsa people and get back to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allegations<\/strong><\/p>\n
Numsa regional secretary Phumzile Nodongwe confirmed that the trust fund has been managed by Numsa\u2019s national structures for the past three years, following the corruption allegations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are still allegations, but after they surfaced head office took over the running of the account,\u201d he said last week.<\/p>\n
Numsa national treasurer Mphumzi Maqungo confirmed that the account is now managed by the union\u2019s national leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe organisation cannot tolerate such things. If the shop stewards are found to have been in the wrong, they must face the music,\u201d Maqungo said.<\/p>\n
Schnellecke regional human resources manager Lynn Damons confirmed that, \u201cin conformity with the requirements of \u2026 the LRA and in return for Numsa\u2019s collective negotiations on behalf of all employees in the hourly rated bargaining unit\u201d, the company had agreed to deduct an agency fee from nonunion employees.<\/p>\n
Damons refused to say how much was in the account when the company withdrew from managing it.<\/p>\n
\u201cNumsa remains solely responsible and accountable for the application and expenditure of these funds \u2026 the company is unable to comment on Numsa\u2019s compliance or otherwise with these requirements,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>The M&G<\/em> Centre for Investigative Journalism (amaBhungane) produced this story. All views are ours. See www.amabhungane.co.za <\/a> for our stories, activities and funding sources.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Numsa report shows the looting for workers’ money by its shop stewards for “stress relief” and “drowning of sorrows”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22866,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}