Pretoria - Exactly a year ago, the Pretoria News published an article about a sexual harassment grievance that had been lodged by City of Tshwane employee Mirriam Mhlongo against a senior municipal official.
This week, and as Women’s Month gets under way, Mhlongo said the case had still not been resolved.
Mhlongo alleged that during a meeting between her and the official to discuss work-related problems, he told her “if you agreed a long time ago to do something with me, you would not have suffered like you did”.
In subsequent e-mail correspondence, Mhlongo said to the official “if agreeing to sleep with you in return for you making it possible for me to get a promotion is the only option… I regret to inform you that I will rather not get promotion.
“I am not going to subject myself to any sexual favours with anybody for any sum of money.”
The official did not dispute that this was what he meant in his response to her e-mail.
Feeling violated and insulted, the corporate and shared services department staff member filed a complaint of sexual harassment and victimisation against the official.
But Mhlongo said to date she had faced an uphill battle trying to get the matter resolved, and municipal leaders had failed or appeared to be reluctant to resolve the matter.
She had since been diagnosed with depression and was undergoing treatment, she stated.
Mhlongo claimed that instead of an investigation into the matter, she was summoned to appear before an internal disciplinary committee for accusing the official of sexual harassment.
“I have gone up and down inquiring what had happened to my complaint and no one seemed interested in helping me. Instead, I am being called into unfair disciplinary hearings, even when my representative was not available,” she said.
“I have taken the grievance to the office of the speaker of council, who referred me to the office of the executive mayor.
“To this day, I have not had any positive response from the offices of the executive mayor, speaker or city manager. This is despite them acknowledging that they had indeed received my complaint,” she said.
At the time of the article, city spokesman Selby Bokaba said the metro viewed harassment of any sort in a very serious light and would act decisively without fear or favour against anyone who was found guilty.
He said the city had appointed a senior manager to investigate the allegations and rejected Mhlongo’s claim that the city manager failed to meet her to hear her side of the story.
But this time round, Bokaba said Mhlongo refused to co-operate with independent investigations conducted by a senior manager and another by the Tshwane Metro Police Department.
Bokaba said as a result of the complainant being unco-operative, both investigations could not find any evidence to support her complaint.
He said the official accused of the sexual harassment complied with investigators and later lodged a case of defamation of character against Mhlongo. “Both reports were handed over to the office of the public protector which then chose to close the investigation. We are merely following procedure that disciplinary hearings be instituted against both individuals,” he said.
“The official in question has also over and above this independently instituted a lawsuit of defamation against Mhlongo.
“She has so far simply requested to meet human resources and the city manager for them to force the official to drop his claims against her,” said Bokaba.
However, Mhlongo denied that she had refused to co-operate with the investigation. She said the city attended to the matter almost seven months later and after her ordeal was reported in the media.
By then, it had already charged her for accusing the official of sexual harassment, and therefore being part of that process would have jeopardised her objection to this charge, which was already before the bargaining council, she added.
Pretoria News