Award nominated DG is suspended

POLOKWANE – The Director-General (DG) in the premier’s office, Rachel Molepo-Modipa, was placed under precautionary suspension on Monday.

This barely a week after she was nominated to be among the country’s best DGs by virtue of the premier’s office being nominated for the national Batho Pele awards for the previous financial year. The awards ceremony will take place on November 14.

The nomination was despite the fact that the office of the premier only achieved 11 out of 28 targets set for the 2012/13 financial year.

The Auditor-General (AG) also found Molepo-Modipa did not take effective steps to prevent irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, amongst other things.

The department of public service and administration (PSA) recently informed premier Stan Mathabatha that Molepo-Modipa was being investigated.

The charges against her were not divulged, but the premier’s spokesperson Kenny Mathivha said she was put on precautionary suspension and being investigated for “gross irregularities”.

He said as head of the provincial administration she must account for problems in the province.

The province’s financial outcomes, as audited by the AG, further regressed during the 2012/13 financial year. One of the root causes cited by the AG for the province’s performance was the lack of consequences for poor performance.

Molepo-Modipa is one of 88 senior managers in the province being investigated and who were informed they are to face disciplinary hearings. More heads are expected to roll when the Hawks, PSA and Sars have concluded their investigations.

Molepo-Modipa was DG when five departments in the province were put under administration when the province was R2,7 billion in the red. She reportedly disputed the investigation of various heads of department when the premier’s office was instructed to do so in April this year and was initially accused of not cooperating with administrators.

During a Scopa hearing in November 2012, she was forced to apologise to Scopa members for trying to mislead them on the reason for irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure of R641 410.

She gave several reasons for the irregular expenditure, some of which later turned out to be untrue. At the time, Scopa forced her to admit that the expenditure in question had been for fuel claims incurred by the then premier, Cassel Mathale.

Molepo-Madipa was castigated by unions for buying furniture valued at R500 000 for the office of the premier when the cash-strapped province could hardly pay civil servants’ salaries early in 2012.

The office had members of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union and staff members picketing for months before the offices of the premier, asking that the premier and DG be dismissed by February 2012 for allegedly unilaterally changing the working conditions of staff members and transferring staff from one section to another.

Molepo-Madipa was furthermore the cause of a lost labour court action when she would not accept the outcome of a disciplinary hearing against three staff members. The office had to pay the costs of the court action.

She was later accused of refusing to institute a disciplinary hearing recommended by the risk management unit against an official who allegedly accepted a R35 000 bribe for a government tender.

The suspension was welcomed by the DA Limpopo. “This decision was long overdue,” DA Limpopo caucus leader, Desiree van der Walt said.”She helped to cover up the corruption and maladministration that crippled service delivery in Limpopo.”

Dr Phuti Pheme was appointed as acting DG.