Cape Town - A colleague facing disciplinary action and others with far less experience were promoted to positions applied for by a Correctional Services Department employee who says he was the best candidate.
Andre Jonkers, 40, a coloured man from Atlantis who testified in the Labour Court on Monday, believes his skin colour prevented him from climbing the ranks within the department.
“If you look at my service in Correctional Services… What I achieved and contributed. It’s sad today to have to sit here regarding this,” he said, swallowing tears.
Jonkers is one of 10 Department of Correctional Services (DCS) employees taking legal action against the department and the Labour Minister as they believe the DCS’s employment equity plan has resulted in them being unfairly discriminated against when applying for promotions.
Trade union Solidarity, also a party in the court action, believes the plan is unfair because the department’s equity targets are in line with national, and not provincial, demographics.
On Tuesday Jonkers said that in 2008 he had applied for a post of training and development manager and was shortlisted, but failed to get the position.
In 2011 the same post was advertised and Jonkers was again shortlisted and interviewed, but did not get it.
He said that last year he was shortlisted and interviewed for four posts and was unsuccessful in all. An Indian and three Africans were appointed instead.
Jonkers said one of the appointees had faced a disciplinary case. “While this case was active, he was shortlisted and appointed.”
Jonkers said another successful candidate had little experience for the job.
Asked by legal representative Martin Brassey, SC, why he felt he was not appointed to any of the posts, Jonkers replied: “The only thing I can see is because I’m a coloured.”
During cross-examination, it emerged that for two of the posts, Jonkers was found suitable, but was not recommended for the jobs due to the employment equity plan.
Advocate Marumo Moerane, SC, who said he sympathised with Jonkers, said “to right the wrongs of the past... some people will not be happy”.
An apparently exasperated Jonkers said that there were no coloured managers in the department’s 10 management areas in the province.
“When is there going to be a future for me and my family? Up to now, if you’ve got 10 posts, not even one is reserved for a coloured. You’re calling that equity?”
Earlier Moerane said an “African male” had been strongly recommended for one of the posts Jonkers had applied for. Jonkers had been recommended as second and another coloured man as third in line for the job. The African man was appointed, but Moerane said it was then found “he had misrepresented himself” by providing false information.
It was recommended the African man’s promotion be withdrawn. Moerane said Jonkers was then found not to comply with the job requirements as he did not have a particular degree.
On Monday Jonkers said he was surprised to hear this.
Moerane said it had then been recommended that the possible promotion of the third in line, the coloured man, be referred to the department’s national commissioner to allow it as this did not fit in with the national equity targets.
The department’s regional commissioner had, however, decided that the post should be re-advertised.