Communications department director-general Mamodupi Mohlala is set to meet with public service & administration minister Richard Baloyi at 4.30pm on Monday in a bid to resolve a tense standoff over her job.
Mohlala is threatening legal action if the meeting with Baloyi does not lead to an outcome satisfactory to her and if the communications department does not unlock her office.
The director-general, axed more than a month ago by communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda before being reinstated (provided she took a month’s leave), arrived for her first day back at work on Monday to find she’d been locked out of her office.
After a tense meeting with Nyanda’s advisers, Mohlala has agreed to give the ministry more time to resolve the issue. But the matter could be back on the boil as soon as tomorrow morning, with Mohlala saying she will press charges for contempt of court if the meeting with Baloyi leads nowhere and she isn’t given access to her office.
The drama over Mohlala’s axing and subsequent reinstatement has taken several surprising turns in recent weeks. Mohlala and Nyanda reached an out-of-court settlement late last month that effectively resulted in her being reinstated, under the proviso that she not return to work for a month while an alternative and equally senior position was found for her elsewhere in government.
Last week, her legal team sent a letter to Baloyi outlining her objections to a surprise announcement in the Government Gazette that she had been appointed as administrator of the public service sector education & training authority.
Mohlala says she was not offered the job formally and had not accepted the position. — Candice Jones and Duncan McLeod, TechCentral
Developing story … more to follow
- Subscribe to our free daily newsletter
- Follow us on Twitter or on Facebook