Johannesburg - Minister of Telecoms and Postal Services Siyabonga Cwele has slapped his former deputy director-general with a lawsuit worth more than R4 million for allegedly overspending on an international conference that was hosted by the department three years ago.
In an extraordinary move this week, Cwele took to the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to force Gift Buthelezi to pay what the department called wasteful expenditure that amounted to R4 317 869 during the conference that was held in the Eastern Cape.
At the time, Buthelezi was the department’s head of international affairs and was also responsible for co-ordinating all the government programmes on the broadband and digital migration process.
Business Report is in possession of the summons served on Buthelezi by the sheriff of the court on Monday.
Mounting costs
The summons states that during 2012, arrangements were made for the then Department of Communications to host the International Telecommunication Union conference.
The summons states that then director-general Rosey Sekese approved R1 440 400 for the hosting of the conference for two weeks.
It claims that Buthelezi ignored a written directive from Sekese to cut certain events to ensure that the conference was held within the approved budget and pressed ahead with a request for a further R2 170 668, which the department was forced to pay even though it was not authorised.
Buthelezi was fired by Sekese via SMS with three other senior officials last year in a move that threw the department into crisis as it prepared to roll out broadband and set-top boxes for almost 5 million poor households in the country.
However, the Public Service Commission (PSC), which probed problems in the department, laid the blame squarely on Sekese’s management style for the collapse of leadership.
In its report early this year, the PSC stopped short of ordering Cwele to reinstate the dismissed officials.
It recommended that charges be instituted against Sekese and Cwele hauled her before a disciplinary hearing, and subsequently refused to renew her contract in June.
In his summons, Cwele said the conference ultimately cost the department R6 371 869 of which just over R600 000 was paid back as a refund. He wants Buthelezi to pay the difference.
“The defendant (Buthelezi) was in any event at all material times an official as contemplated by section 45 of the Public Finance Management Act... and he was required to take effective and appropriate steps to prevent any expenditure which was irregular and/or fruitless and/or wasteful,” the summons states.
A source in the department told Business Report that Sekese’s figure was “grossly” underestimated as the conference was attended by 400 delegates, including diplomats, Nasa officials and space engineers.
“There were many issues that were ignored. You needed to have basic things such as computers and communications points, which the venue could not provide,” the source said. “The conference could also not be hosted without including the Department of Home Affairs, the police and national intelligence to provide security for such high level delegates.”
Unprecedented
Another called the move unprecedented, charging that questions about money should have been directed to Sekese as the ultimate accounting officer.
“The person who ultimately signed off on the money was Sekese and some official in the department’s infrastructure section. It looks like Gift (Buthelezi) is being targeted for reasons beyond the monies,” the source said. “If the director-general (Sekese) felt that the costs were out of budget, she simply would not have authorised the payments.”
The department was not available for comment.
Buthelezi said through his lawyers that the move was designed to intimidate him from an arbitration case to force the department to reinstate him after the PSC found that his dismissal was unlawful.
He said Sekese paid R3.6m for the venue long before he became involved in the organisation of the conference.
“I am being victimised for pointing out that the organisation of the conference did not follow due processes as departments such as Home Affairs and security were not involved in the planning,” Buthelezi said. “I have also referred some of the shenanigans that took place during the organisation process to the public protector to probe possible corruption.”
BUSINESS REPORT