An Investigation been launched into the husband of Public Works Deputy Minister Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, who allegedly sexually harassed a staff member in his wife’s office.
Simon Zulu was brought into the Public Works Department as an aide to his wife, who is partially blind.
But just over a year since he was appointed, he has been accused of sending a junior staff member in his wife’s department unsavoury SMSes, threats of firing her if she did not have sex with him, and calling her names.
The deputy minister was informed of the incidents as early as July but is said not to have done much to stop it.
According to a letter of grievance from the staff member, the deputy minister told the woman to encourage her husband by kissing him, allowing him into her room on trips and even telling him she loved him so that she could tape it.
The woman cannot be named as she is a victim of sexual harassment. The allegations of sexual harassment she lodged were ignored for nearly four months – despite the woman informing the director in the deputy minister’s office, the chief of staff in the office of the minister and finally former Public Works minister Geoff Doidge.
The deputy minister has however now called for an independent commission to investigate the allegations.
Director-general Sxa Dongwana has put the woman on special leave, pending the completion of the investigation.
Zulu, however, is still working.
Yesterday the woman told The Sunday Independent she had no comment on the matter.
However in her letter to the DG, she said: “This is all against my beliefs and I did not get the protection I was looking for from the deputy minister.
“After all these incidents I don’t feel safe because of the statement that he will make my life miserable as he knows my whereabouts.”
In her letter, the woman intimated that another woman had also been harassed by Zulu.
The allegations were brought to the attention of Dongwana on November 5.
Dongwana referred all questions to the communications department.
According to the grievance letter, which the Sunday Independent has seen, Zulu initially declared his love for the woman, which she rejected and laughed off.
But it did not stop there.
Zulu sent her unsavoury and suggestive SMSes while he was on a trip to Vienna in July and later threatened her with expulsion if she did not have a sexual relationship with him.
Zulu even told her the deputy minister would not believe her allegations as “he had done it before with others”.
The woman notified Bogopane-Zulu on July 24, when she was called in to discuss her lack of productivity. Bogopane-Zulu told her she had suspected her husband, and she had noticed he often called the woman at night, even leaving their bedroom to make a call.
“DM [deputy minister] mentioned she is requesting me not to tell Mr Zulu that I reported him, I must just be nice to him and pretend as if there is nothing wrong and she will then handle the matter.
“DM even said when we are out for meetings and staying in hotels, I must allow Mr Zulu to come to my room if he wants to, and open the door for him.
“When he is inside my room then immediately I should send an SMS to her just to let her know that he is there.
“And if Mr Zulu starts to talk to me I must dial her number and she will listen to everything and tape us and that is when she will deal with him.”
The woman had also tried to complain to Mathuto Motumi, director in the office of the deputy minister, who laughed off the allegations and told her to resign, stating that she could not cope with the pressures in the office.
On September 1, Bogopane-Zulu called both the woman and Zulu in and said they should work as a team.
Zulu had started off as an administrative assistant at pay Level 8 last year. But two months later he was elevated to assistant PA.
Public Works spokesman Lucky Mochalibane said: “The Department of Public Works takes note of the fact that there have been allegations of sexual harassment involving the office of the deputy minister.
“The deputy minister herself has requested an independent commission to investigate these allegations.
“The investigation is expected to be concluded before the end of November 2010 and until the process is concluded, and all the facts are established, there will be no further comments or communication by the department on this matter in order to allow due processes to be followed without interference.”
Bogopane-Zulu yesterday said she did not want to comment.
However she said the allegations could not have been brought to her on July 24 as she had been out of the country then.
“I was in Vienna and then at the UN.”
She said both the woman and Zulu, as her private guide, were employees and she did not want to prejudice the case.
She said the woman had come to her with the allegations on September 1 and she had dealt with it in terms of the Labour Relations Act.
Bogopane-Zulu, a gender activist, has in the past been instrumental in the development of the human resources guidelines of the Employment Equity Act.
She asked why the allegations had come out now, one week after President Jacob Zuma had effected a reshuffle, when former Public Works minister Geoff Doidge had been informed in September. - The Sunday Independent