Metro police
chief fired
Mathabathe
accused of failing to disclose second income
IN yet another snarl-up in the rocky
roll-out of Nelson Mandela Bay’s new crime fighting unit, metro police chief
Pinkie Mathabathe has been fired for under-performance and failure to declare a
second income. This comes less than three weeks after the launch of the metro
police force and follows a municipal disciplinary process involving “serious”
charges.
Mathabathe’s sudden departure also
comes in the wake of a showdown between disgruntled Bay traffic department and
security officials.
Acting city manager Johann Mettler
was tight-lipped yesterday about the reasons for Mathabathe’s sacking.
“[I] can confirm that the services
of Pinkie Mathabathe have been terminated following a disciplinary process,” he
said.
“I am not at liberty to discuss the
nature of the charges that she faced except that they were serious enough to
warrant such an outcome.
“We will be advertising this vacancy
shortly.”
Two municipal sources said the
disciplinary action against Mathabathe had started a short while back.
They said the city had discovered
that she had been doing work for a government entity and failed to declare it
to the council.
The sources said she had also been
called to task over her performance.
Mathabathe could not be reached for
comment last night.
Her position as a non-executive
director of the Road Traffic Management Corporation came to light when the
RTMC’s annual financial statements for the year ended March 31 2015 were
released in September.
During her stint as police chief,
without any staff, Mathabathe attended several meetings of the RTMC.
She had been booked off on sick
leave since February, which was later changed to “special leave”.
The RTMC was launched in April 2005
with the goal of cooperative and coordinated traffic law enforcement by the
national, provincial and local government.
In addition to her income from the
RTMC position, Mathabathe earned an annual salary of more than R1-million from
the municipality.
Mathabathe, who was the former
Tshwane deputy chief of metro police, was employed as the boss of the then
still non-existent metro police force in February 2014.
According to the RTMC annual
financial statements for the year ended March 31 2015, Mathabathe received R308
141 for attending board meetings during the financial year.
Of the this amount, R298 215 was for
meeting attendance and R9 926 for travel reimbursements.
This was a massive jump from her
2014 payment of R38 551 – of which R37 414 was for attending meetings and R1
137 for travel reimbursements.
The move marks the second metro
police chief to be fired since the council adopted a resolution in 2009 to
establish the police agency, which has been plagued by seven years of delays.
It comes less than three weeks after
mayor Danny Jordaan launched the metro police.
Mathabathe failed to attend the
function. Asked at the time why Mathabathe was not present, it was said she was
on special leave.
In the interim, the acting police
chief is Shadrack Sibiya.
In November, Mathabathe was
appointed acting head of the safety and security department when former
executive director Shane Brown asked to be demoted.
In March, Mathabathe asked to be
relieved of these duties and return as metro police chief. Since then, she has
been booked off from work.
In April, former World Cup security
boss and Correctional Services commissioner Linda Mti, 61, was appointed in the
executive director post.
Mathabathe’s predecessor, Advocate
Trish Armstrong – who was head-hunted by the municipality in 2008 to help
establish the metro police – was appointed project team leader before her
contract was terminated in 2012.
Armstrong was fired via e-mail a day
before the metro police force was due to be launched in 2012.
The municipality was taken to court
for unfair dismissal and Armstrong was awarded a R234 000 payout.
Last week, several furious traffic
officers, who refuse to work with the metro police members, claimed they had
been left in the dark and were now facing disciplinary action after a protest
at the launch of the new force at City Hall on May 13.
A meeting of angry employees on
Wednesday last week resulted in the traffic department’s services being
severely curtailed.
Officials denied a go-slow was under
way but sources said a number of officials had embarked on a go-slow as part of
a protest against the new unit.
The matter between the unions and
the safety and security directorate has still not been resolved.
Yesterday, DA MEC Bobby Stevenson
mentioned the metro police saga in his budget speech, saying the launch was
shambolic.
“It is clear that this whole process
has been steamrolled as an election ploy. And it is not operationally ready to
comply with the requirements,” he said.
“What we need in Nelson Mandela Bay
to fight crime and gangsterism is a properly established municipal police
service with an anti-gang unit and an anti-drug unit attached to it.
“These two units could make a
significant difference in combating gangsterism in the northern areas,”
Stevenson said. – Additional reporting by Rochelle de Kock
