Pretoria - The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has welcomed the dismissal of Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) group chief executive Zolani Matthews with immediate effect over his over dual citizenship.
The Prasa board terminated Matthews’ employment contract after he was unable to secure favourable security clearance from the State Security Agency, which was a requirement of his employment contract.
Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim said his union had been vindicated.
“We have been vindicated. We have always felt that Mr Matthews was not the right person for this job because he refused to work with labour to find a permanent solution to the crisis facing workers at Autopax,” said Jim.
“He treated employees with total disdain, and he did not make any effort to address the crisis of rampant mismanagement at Autopax. He had no plans to turn Autopax around, and he refused to assist in devising a mechanism to ensure that workers at Autopax were paid their outstanding salaries.”
Autopax is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Prasa, and has as its main object and business the long-distance road transportation of passengers.
Jim said employees at Autopax are often subjected to delays in their salary payments because the company is being mismanaged.
“There were delays in the payment of salaries for October and September. Out of frustration, workers went to Prasa offices to picket, and they even marched to the national department of transport. It is interesting to note that since the suspension of Mr Matthews last month, workers were paid their outstanding October salaries last week, and the November salaries, as well as bonuses, will be paid by next week,” said Jim.
Meanwhile, former finance minister Tito Mboweni has questioned the decision of Prasa to fire Matthews over the dual citizenship debacle.
Mboweni said there were many people who work in State-owned entities without being South African citizens.
He said more clarity was needed on the reasons behind the axing of Matthews.
Mboweni tweeted about the dismissal, saying he disagreed with Prasa’s decision to axe its CEO and called for more clarity on the matter.
“I disagree with the Prasa decision. Could they elaborate? Prasa fires CEO Zolani Matthews over dual citizenship matter. Nothing wrong with dual citizenship. Unless if he denied it when asked. There are many people who don’t even have South African citizenship who work at the SOEs. Unless there is something they are hiding from us. Transparency people”.
IOL