The premier of North West, Bushy Maape (above), has not taken action against Relebohile Mafokane, the head of the province’s social development department, for not conducting performance assessments of senior officials.
North West Premier Bushy Maape has failed to institute disciplinary steps against a senior official, who has allegedly repeatedly defied legislation to complete the performance
assessment required for all senior managers.
Relebohile Mafokane, the head of the North West’s social development department, who earns R1.5 million annually, has also been working with an unsigned five-year employment contract since he was hired, according to official provincial documents.
His failure to carry out assessments aimed at monitoring the output of senior government managers and accounting officers carries a sanction that includes being fired, in line with the Public Service Act.
Mafokane displayed “insolence, disrespect and misconduct” when he missed the 31 May 2022 deadline to complete his assessment, despite being given extensions up to February this year, according to official provincial documents.
These revelations come on the back of a series of Mail & Guardian stories about Mafokane and the alleged misconduct at the social development department, including that Mafokane signed off on allegedly corrupt security contracts worth R133.9 million, and that he is facing a Special Investigating Unit inquiry for supposedly falsifying his qualifications prior to his May 2021 appointment.
Boitumelo Moiloa, the MEC for social development, sent five letters to Mafokane from August to October last year, telling him she would
recommend that Maape fire him for his “insubordination and dereliction of duty”.
The Public Service Act empowers the premier to employ and handle disciplinary issues for all provincial heads of department.
“The fact that you could not handle your own performance documents and have it processed makes it worse, since it becomes questionable if you have been able to master and lead the performance management contracts of all the senior and executive managers,” Moiloa wrote in a letter to Mafokane dated October 2022.
In the same month, she also wrote to inform him that she had taken extensive steps in a bid to ensure that Mafokane adhered to the
law, including eliciting the assistance of Pogiso Modise from the premier’s office.
Moiloa added in her letter to Maape that she was referring this matter to the premier for him to “administer consequence management for insubordination”.
On 16 February, the acting director general in the office of the premier, Obakeng Mongale, told Mafokane in a letter that he had until the 27th of that month “to ensure compliance” with the directives of the Act.
Mafokane has still not complied.
In an August 2022 bulletin from the public service and administration department, its director for performance management, Edward Harris, stated that performance assessments were “the bedrock of performance management”.
He added: “Performance agreements are also an integral part of the planning process on an annual basis. Therefore, it is important that employees and supervisors give careful thought and prepare accordingly with respect to the drafting of performance agreements.”
Last month, Maape placed Moiloa on a month-long suspension. The premier said in a statement that he had also granted Mafokane’s request to go on “special leave” for a month while Moiloa was away. Maape’s granting of Mafokane’s leave request was not based on the senior official’s non-compliance.
In announcing Moiloa’s suspension, the premier said there had been a “near administrative paralysis” in the provincial social development department owing to an apparently fractious working relationship between her and Mafokane.
Maape said he was “compelled and required by the Constitution, as the person vested with the executive authority of the province, to intervene on behalf of good governance and for the sake of the poor and the marginalised, whose livelihoods were dependent on the services offered by the department”.
On Monday, law firm Tau Matsimela Attorneys addressed a letter of demand to the premier, saying it was representing the Mahikeng-based nonprofit organisation Brown Mogotsi Foundation, which wanted a review of what it calls Mafokane’s “irregular appointment”.
The firm said it was contesting Mafokane’s appointment because it had traced the head of department’s qualifications, and deduced that, based on its research, Mafokane had submitted fraudulent qualifications before being hired.
Part of the research included a February 2019 report by the Public Service Commission, which said Mafokane held a matric certificate when he was appointed as the public service and administration’s chief of staff under former minister Faith Muthambi in 2017.
In its letter to Maape, the law firm said it had been “instructed to request [the premier’s office] to review the qualifications submitted by Mr Mafokane”, adding that it wanted a “report to enable us to advise our client accordingly”.
“As the issues raised in this letter manifestly affect the public purse and service delivery, we wish not to emphasise the urgency of this matter … Our client’s rights are reserved,”
it said.
Meanwhile, Mafokane’s contract has remained unsigned by the province’s executive authority. At the time of Mafokane’s appointment, the premier was Job Mokgoro.
Mokgoro confirmed this week that he had not signed the contract in May 2021, saying this responsibility at the time lay with the then public service and administration minister, Senzo Mchunu, because North West had been placed under administration in May 2018.
The administration was in terms of section 100 of the Constitution, and was applied because the provincial government was unable to fulfil its service delivery and financial obligations.
Mokgoro declined to comment further on the matter, and referred all queries to the office of the current premier Maape.
Responding on behalf of Maape and the province, North West premier spokesperson Sello Tatai said Mokgoro had signed Mafokane’s employment contract, despite the former premier confirming that he had not, and a copy of Mafokane’s contract showing no signature from an executive authority.
Although there is official communication, including from Maape’s office, that Mafokane had not completed his assessment, Tatai said the departmental head had, indeed, done so.
However, Tatai added that some of the issues raised by the M&G form part of the investigation Maape is conducting on both Moiloa and Mafokane during their month-long leave of absence.
“Our focus is to conclude the intervention and submit a report to the premier before the end of June. We would be happy to take any inquiries on verified findings of the intervention team. These inquiries are intended to run a parallel inquiry outside the intervention process which the office of the premier will not countenance.”
