Golden handshake for USAASA CEO

Universal Service and Access Agency of SA (USAASA) CEO Phineas Moleele has been granted a settlement of seven months' salary after being placed on cautionary suspension.

Moleele, along with several other executives, was placed on suspension pending the outcome of a forensic investigation into allegations of financial mismanagement at the agency. The investigation was complete in December and disciplinary proceedings against the executives began.

At this point Moleele requested a settlement, and although this was rejected by communications Parliamentary Portfolio Committee members, the Department of Communications (DOC) says it agreed to the settlement request.

Moleele had requested a 15 months' salary settlement, but the department agreed on and granted him seven. The details of the settlement are confidential. He has since left the organisation, said the DOC.

It added that the investigation has been concluded and the executive caretakers are now implementing decisions that are necessitated by the outcomes of the investigation.

Democratic Alliance (DA) shadow minister of communications Marian Shinn was critical of Moleele's request, and said it would allow him to depart with an unblemished record. She added that there are many examples of government officials not being held accountable for failure and being allowed to “get away with it”.

DA shadow deputy minister of communications Butch Steyn said the norm is that the individual who is facing disciplinary action, especially senior employees, are usually suspended with full benefits while that process is undertaken, and could very well exceed the seven months settled for.

The committee has requested the investigation report, as well as details of Moleele's settlement from USAASA. Steyn added that all the information needs to be at hand to properly judge the situation. The committee does not know how serious the charges were against Moleele or the value involved.

“It is widely known that disciplinary investigations in the public sector can often take years, and during that process the individual cannot be replaced and, therefore, there is no finality and the institution cannot move forward.

“However, depending on the severity of the charges and the evidence, we will push for criminal charges to be laid once we have had sight of the report. This can obviously be done irrespective of whether the individual is still employed by USAASA or not. The fly in the ointment would be the detail of any conditions attached to the settlement of his contract.”

Moleele was placed on suspension on 6 October and the agency in February confirmed that Thato Matsepe, in charge of USAASA's internal IT infrastructure, had also been suspended. In September, CFO Andrew Hlubi; executive manager of business development, Molefi Jacob Mollo; and senior manager of supply chain management, Archie Nhlanhla Mbatha were placed on special leave.

“The affected employees are still on suspension and efforts are being made to ensure that these matters are finalised as soon as possible,” says the DOC. Disciplinary processes against the executives have begun.

All parties present at the portfolio committee meeting on USAASA's strategic plan agreed that the agency is not in good shape and lacks capacity. It had identified major risk factors, but mitigation plans, disaster recovery plans and fraud prevention plans were not in place.

For this reason the members found the strategic and business plans to be lacking in substance. Discrepancies in the information provided were pointed out and the plans included out-of-date data.

DA members suggested that the operations of the agency be suspended, but members from the ANC felt the caretaker team should be allowed the opportunity to turn the entity around.

Communications minister Dina Pule in November appointed Sam Vilakazi, acting deputy director-general of finance, and Themba Phiri, acting deputy director-general of the Presidential National Commission on Information Society and Development, as executive caretakers to steer the organisation as an interim measure, while the investigations were being carried out.

Phiri said non-executive board members were released from duty and communications minister Dina Pule said a new board will be in place by the end of the month. Phiri also said the technical advisor resigned in November 2011; the forensic investigations were completed in December and the projects awarded to service providers were subjected to value-for-money audits.

Vilakazi said tender committees were appointed to ensure that supply-chain management procedures were followed, and condoning of the wasteful expenditure concerning capped leave would be sought.

However, Steyn disagreed with the decision to condone the wasteful expenditure and felt that everything possible should be done to recover the money.

He added that it's not acceptable that no service delivery took place while the management of the organisation is addressed. USAASA has been in existence since 2007 and it would appear that proper procedures were never implemented.

Shinn noted that USAASA appeared to be doing very little while the review of its mandate is pending. She suggested that operations be immediately suspended and questioned the rationale for keeping the agency going in the light of the high risk, absence of a strategy and chronic lack of skills capacity.