Johannesburg - An axed English teacher from Mmabatho High School in North West says he will not stop fighting his dismissal.
The educator, whose career spans 30 years, told The Star that his dismissal was in retaliation for exposing the theft of more than R200 000 arising from fraudulent Covid-19 relief grant claims at the school.
Simon Liholo, who was suspended in 2020 and dismissed last year, said attempts by the SA Council for Educators (Sace) to intervene on his behalf did not help as he was already a marked man. This, he said, resulted in an elaborate plan that resulted in certain senior officials concocting a “fake” dismissal supposedly authorised and sanctioned by the Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga.
“I strongly believe that someone within the North West Department of Education, working solo or in cahoots with officials at a national level, cooked my dismissal letter,” Liholo said.
“In my view, this was done to justify a fruitless expenditure to the auditors because I had been earning a salary since I was unlawfully suspended on October 2, 2020, especially after I lodged an appeal with the MEC on July 16, 2021 to June 9, 2022, when I received the purported dismissal letter from the minister without providing any service to the employer.
“The MEC did not respond for the year,” Lihlolo said of his dismissal.
He said that due to mounting pressure, those responsible for his downfall needed something permanent to deal with him.
“Therefore, something urgent had to be done to justify a year of silence to my appeal, instead of the three months provided by law.
“When I interviewed one of the officials, Mr Michael Keetile (the director of Labour Relations based at Old Mmabatho Hostels), who is now under precautionary suspension, said: ‘I am aware of the case, but I was never involved in its decision-making process. Yes, I was copied, and correctly so, as the director of labour relations, to be informed about the judgment for record purposes and to report to my higher authorities. All labour-related decisions in disciplinary hearings do eventually come to my attention’,” Liholo said.
That was probably what the rest would say, as they all failed to respond before going to the media.
He said a lot of things about his dismissal did not make sense.
“I received the dismissal letter from the minister dated June 9, 2022, on June 29, 2022, and on July 1, 2022, I questioned its authenticity through Steve Mabua, the minister’s PA.
The minister’s letter reads: “Your appeal lodged with my office on July 8, 2022, as regards findings and sanctions imposed following your disciplinary hearing has now been finalised.”
He said the letter, said to be signed by the minister, could not have come from the office of the minister as it was full of errors and other inconsistencies.
“The letter is replete with substantive and procedural lapses and technical mistakes that range from the structure of the letter, slanting body text, quality of the Department of Basic Education’s emblem, incorrect date of appeal (July 8, 2022 v July 16, 2021), spelling mistake (outocme v outcome), etc.
“The investigators who produced the Mmabatho High School UIF-Ters Follow the Money Report from the Department of Employment and Labour yielded many favourable outcomes to me long before the minister announced her findings and decision against me,” he added.
Liholo said that he had not lodged an appeal with the minister as he was never informed of any parallel investigation.
“I never lodged any appeal with the minister’s office on July 8, 2022. I was never informed of any parallel investigations into matters of fraud and corruption. I was shocked when I learnt that they were finalised without any favourable outcome to me.
“I lodged my appeal with MEC Wendy Matsemela on July 16, 2021, contrary to what the minister says about me lodging my appeal with her office on July 8, 2022,” he said.
Liholo said he felt let down by both the provincial department and the national department under whose name his dismissal letter was authored, and that he had been given a raw deal.
“I only received the dismissal letter from the minister a year later while I was awaiting a response from the MEC, the correct and relevant political authority in the province to which I appealed.
“I feel the department as a whole, from Circuit through District to province, has failed me by not acting on the recommendations of the Mmabatho High School report,” Liholo said.
“My questions are: Who really authored, sanctioned, and authored the dismissal of my appeal?”
Responding to The Star, provincial departmental spokesperson Mphata Molokwane said the department did not dismiss Liholo due to his activism as a whistle-blower but because of misconduct.
“The dismissal of Mr Liholo is not a matter of being a whistle-blower,“ Molokwane said.
“The department dismissed the teacher based on actions of misconduct, and he even walked out of the disciplinary hearing. He was charged with 10 counts of misconduct, and moreover, the charges were not levelled up to whistle-blowing.
“He only accepted two of those charges. The reason why the matter was handled by the minister is that the provincial government was under Section 100 b. Then Mr Liholo appealed against the matter to the Education Labour Relations Council, and the matter was referred to be resolved by the ELRC on July 19, 2023.”
The Star