Cannabis meeting ends in court win for fired Mpumalanga CFO

A Mpumalanga government chief financial officer, who was dismissed during a meeting he believed was about cannabis investment, has won his reinstatement after the Labour Court found there was no factual basis for his summary dismissal.

Mapholoba Andries Letswalo was fired in January 2022 for allegedly creating and distributing “Agric Looting”, a document containing corruption claims against then-premier Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane and provincial agriculture head Cain Chunda.

Acting Judge A Gxogxa overturned a bargaining council ruling that the dismissal was procedurally unfair but substantively fair. The judge declared it unfair on both grounds and ordered Letswalo’s retrospective reinstatement.

The document surfaced during former agriculture MEC Mandla Msibi’s absence from office. Mtshweni-Tsipane fired Msibi in October 2021 after he was charged on two counts of murder and attempted murder. The charges were withdrawn and he was reinstated a year later.

The department alleged Letswalo had both written and disseminated the document and had met another official, Mr Silinda, as part of a plot concerning Chunda’s “demise”. It also claimed “Agric Looting” was sent to an email address purportedly belonging to Msibi.

Msibi testified for Letswalo at arbitration that he knew nothing about the document and did not own the Gmail address to which it was allegedly sent.

Letswalo said Chunda summoned him in January 2022 to what he understood would be a meeting about cannabis investment in Mpumalanga. Chunda then raised an investigation alleging Letswalo had written a document about the head of department and premier.

Letswalo was then handed a sealed envelope containing his summary dismissal. He denied the claims, called for a thorough investigation and offered his cellphones and laptops for examination.

The letter accused him of fabricating and spreading defamatory information about Mtshweni-Tsipane and Chunda, dishonesty, collusion, plotting against Chunda and breaching the department’s IT policy. Another allegation concerned his alleged failure to implement a recommendation to recover R1.2-million.

The department’s case relied on evidence from an IT specialist, a Mr Mathebula, who said he had prepared an expert report after being contracted to identify who created and distributed the email.

But the report on record appeared to have been produced by TransAfrican Fibre Services and named a different investigator, leading Gxogxa to find that reliance on the report amounted to hearsay.

The timing also undermined the department’s case: Letswalo was dismissed on January 20 2022 and referred his dispute five days later, while the cyber report was completed only on January 29 and had not been submitted when Letswalo was fired.

Letswalo’s cyber forensic investigator, Mr Lothe, questioned why Letswalo’s device had never been seized for examination.

He challenged Mathebula’s reliance on an IMEI number to link a laptop to Letswalo, explaining that the numbers identified mobile devices on cellular networks, while laptops used serial numbers. His evidence was not disputed.

Gxogxa said Mathebula’s testimony bore the “hallmarks of partisanship rather than those of an objective expert witness”.

The judge criticised his claim that parts of the investigation had been proved “beyond reasonable doubt”.

Under cross-examination, Chunda could not identify evidence showing Letswalo had distributed the email. He said he would consult an expert about whether such evidence existed. The department closed its case without producing it.

The court concluded that the department failed to establish a factual basis for either the allegations in Letswalo’s dismissal letter or the decision to dismiss him summarily.

Mtshweni-Tsipane is chairperson of the National Council of Provinces. Msibi has left the ANC and become the Service Delivery Party’s national coordinator.

Mtshweni-Tsipane distanced herself from Letswalo’s dismissal, saying the labour dispute was between him and the department.

“I was never involved with the labour processes involving Letswalo,” she said. “At the time, I was only shocked to read a document smearing my name. It is sad that the very name is once again brought up in his own legal battle with the department.”

Chunda did not respond personally, with the department referring Sunday World’s questions to its lawyers.

Lamula KB Attorneys said the department “does not accept the judgment handed down by the Labour Court” and had resolved to apply to the Labour Appeal Court, because the “dismissal … was substantively fair”.

It added that the department had been advised that it enjoyed “strong prospects of success on appeal” and was “confident that a differently constituted forum will arrive at a different conclusion”.

The lawyers declined to answer Sunday World’s questions about the cannabis meeting, the investigation and evidence against Letswalo, as they concerned issues before the courts.

They further said the department’s position was that “the reinstatement order will not be of force or effect pending the finalisation of the appeal process”, once its application for leave to appeal had been delivered.