By Boyd Webb
Home Affairs Director-General Mavuso Msimang's straight-talking, no-nonsense approach to troubleshooting, has earned him the nickname Mr Fix-it, but also a long list of unhappy former employees.
He has weathered a host of allegations, including being a sex pest, which clouded the announcement of his appointment earlier this year to his new post at arguably the most dysfunctional government department in South Africa.
On October 15, the lawsuit was dropped against him, leaving him angry and hollow at having not had his day in court to face his accuser.
"I feel like the Springboks would have felt had they reached the World Cup finals only to be told that the England team was not prepared to run onto the field for the last game," Mavuso said.
"I had a very good chance of winning my case, in fact my chances were stronger even than those given the Springboks, and yet I was denied that victory and the victory I achieved has left me feeling hollow."
Msimang was referring to Ursula Wagner's decision earlier this month to withdraw her R500 000 damages claim against him.
Wagner, a former employee at the State Information Technology Agency (Sita) during Msimang's tenure as CEO, claimed in legal papers that Msimang was sexually suggestive towards her.
Wagner said she was fired from Sita as a direct result of her refusal to accept his advances.
The case found itself into the pages of the Afrikaans press and when he was appointed director-general, journalists who did an Internet search on his name, found the first article that appeared was about his alleged "sex pest" advances.
What upset Msimang more, was that his comment was never sought on the original article.
But it was not the first time he had been hard done by at the hands of the media, says Msimang.
He had to weather allegations that he misappropriated millions of rands from the Umthombo Pride project in KwaZulu-Natal between 1993 and 1994.
But as in Wagner's case those claims also arose after employees were dismissed, he said.
However, Msimang said on Friday that although he understood he would not always win popularity contests, he was not impervious to the pain of false allegations especially when they were perpetuated in the media without his side being asked for.
"It hurts, it really, really hurts," he said, to see himself referred to as a sex pest on billboards when he and those around him knew there was no way he could do such a thing.
He described as a "tragedy" the media's lust to see the image of a "relatively high-profile person" tarnished and cut down to size.
"I suppose it's a good story between a David and a Goliath, it's the natural human emotion to sympathise with David, hey," he said.
But he warned that cases in which the underdog was, in fact, the guilty party did immeasurable damage to the media's image.
Furthermore, the whole saga had detracted from what was in fact a very serious problem.
"The reality is that sexual harassment in the workplace is rampant," he said.
But careless reporting as with his incident set the women's agenda for equality back, he said.
"In the end, if sexual harassers win the cases, what does it do to the image of the women's agenda?" Msimang said, noting that he was, in fact, a staunch supporter of women's rights as any man with a wife and three daughters had to be, he laughed.
"No ways would I countenance anyone of my children or my wife being disadvantaged because they are women, and I know because they come across these things," he said.
"So they don't need pretenders to mess up something that is already wrong."
Msimang also criticised women's groups that questioned his appointment for "behaving extremely badly"; they, like the media, had failed to seek an explanation from him.
He said that accepting the job was a "huge sacrifice" on his part without having the added stress of groups expressing their unhappiness with his appointment.
He did it because he felt that it was important for the country to "get things running well", he said.
Msimang believes the department will be turned around and that there is light at the end of the tunnel, albeit "a very long tunnel".
As of yesterday more than 200 Home Affairs employees, including senior officials, have been suspended since Msimang was parachuted into the department five months ago.
He said he does not enjoy dismissing people but when the carrot does not work, the stick kicks in.
Msimang also stated that he would not be surprised if other allegations were levelled against him that were far worse than the sexual harassment charges.
"It's a dangerous job that I have to do because there are whole syndicates which are being stopped," he said.
But he said he would not let that prevent him from carrying out the task that needed to be done.