Former Kelly Group director and deputy CEO Mthunzi Mdwaba will not face a disciplinary hearing. Instead, the group has agreed to take the matter to private arbitration.
A source close to Kelly and Mdwaba says the process has been anything but straightforward, adding that the disciplinary hearing, which was supposed to happen yesterday, was cancelled.
It’s the second hearing to be cancelled since Mdwaba was unceremoniously stripped of his directorship and suspended at the end of August.
Mdwaba is also CEO of Kelly’s technology training subsidiary, Torque IT, which the group acquired in 2008.
Mdwaba’s suspension has been shrouded in mystery, and Kelly Group has refused to provide any details about the situation.
Three days later after Mdwaba’s initial suspension, group financial director Ferdie Pieterse sent a memo to staff saying the suspension had been “lifted with immediate effect pending due process”.
The due process was to be the disciplinary hearing, the first of which was planned for 22 September, but moved to 28 September.
However, the source, who asked to remain anonymous given the sensitive nature of the situation, says the company has agreed to take the matter to private arbitration.
Kelly Group faced even more trouble this week as the result of an e-mail, purporting to be from the company’s HR director, Elias Monage, accusing Kelly’s board of presiding over several unfair dismissals.
The group says the e-mail is a fraud and has opened a criminal investigation into the matter, with a specific focus on identity theft.
Mdwaba declines to comment on developments, saying only that the disciplinary hearing did not happen.
The dispute appears to be related to a fall-out between Mdwaba and Kelly Group CEO Grenville Wilson.
It appears Wilson is planning to retire soon and the board had tipped Mdwaba as his successor.
TechCentral has been told that the two men had disagreed over how the company would be managed after Wilson left. Mdwaba was expected to take the reins on 1 October.
Wilson has previously refused to say why Mdwaba had been removed from the board, saying it was a board issue.
However, sources indicate Mdwaba has been charged for not disclosing a debt he owes involving a failed business he was involved in before joining Kelly Group.
The source is not able to say when the private arbitration process will take place. — Candice Jones, TechCentral
- Image credit: Wallula Junction
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