Mamodupi Mohlala has rejected a letter, on behalf of President Jacob Zuma, by the State Attorney requesting she drop her legal bid to be reinstated as Department of Communications' director-general.
Communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda dismissed Mohlala suddenly last week, citing a breakdown of trust between him and his former most senior public servant.
Earlier this week, Mohlala filed an urgent application with the Gauteng Labour Court to have her dismissal declared unlawful, or to obtain an interim relief that would let her remain as director-general until the issue is finalised.
The court is due to hear the case today. The State Attorney replied to Mohlala's lawyers on Tuesday that they would oppose her motion.
As part of an attempt to find a remedy to her dismissal, Mohlala's lawyers wrote to President Jacob Zuma's office earlier this week, requesting an intervention to settle the dispute between her and Nyanda. A possible remedy would be to transfer her to another position in the public sector that would have an equivalent status as being a director-general of a department.
Mohlala says the letter sent to her lawyers asks her to place her legal challenge in “abeyance” and suggests that public service and administration minister Richard Baloyi make some sort of intervention.
While Mohlala was still director-general, and the differences between her and Nyanda were beginning to heat up, she wrote to Baloyi concerning Nyanda's instructions to suspend all DOC tenders. Nyanda had objected to this.
“I have rejected the request to stop my legal action, because there is no timeframe suggested in the letter and there is no indication of what the nature of the intervention by the public service and administration minister would be. The longer the process takes, the more prejudice I will suffer,” she says.
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Nyanda instructed Mohlala to suspend tenders
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