Your assertions in the article published on Sunday, 21 April 2013 cannot go unchallenged. If the article was simply a flight of fancy for your personal diary that would be fine, but considering that the City Press has an obligation to report news accurately and objectively in terms of the Press Code, then we demand that you put the record straight for your readers.
You somehow attribute the financial crisis that the NPA found itself in late last year, to Adv Jiba. If your comment was a simple case of a leader of an organisation having to take accountability for everything that happens under her watch, whether they personally had something to do with it or not, there would be no problems with your statement. However, the flaw in your reporting is that without the proper context that you do not give, you are attributing the misfortunes of the NPA last year to her ‘tumultuous stint’ and selling your comment as a legitimate fact, which it certainly is not.
The facts around the NPA’s financial are as follows:
1. The NPA is not ‘effectively bankrupt’, as you put it. The NPA has paid all salaries without fail; and on average pays 92,4% of its creditors within 30 days and improving. A bankrupt organisation would not have been able to do so. In addition, the organisation did not even have to get any bailout from the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development or National Treasury.
2. The financial crisis of last financial year (2012/13) was caused by a build up from the following factors:
a. A court judgment that compelled the NPA to pay a large number of employees back pay of over 10 months, as implementation of a Job Evaluation (JE) exercise that was conducted and finalised in 2004. This bill came at a huge cost which had not been planned for in the 2012-13 financial year but had to be accommodated.
b. The implementation of Occupational Specific Dispensation (OSD) was finally implemented during 2010-11, but the carry through costs, due to the expansion of the salary bands and ceilings were much higher than previously anticipated.
c. Budget allocations of the notches in respect of performance awards increased from 1% to 1.5%, which created a cumulative shortfall of R78 million.
Even you have to accept that these are historical matters with their origins long before Adv Jiba held the acting position at the helm. In fact, it is under her leadership that the hard but correct decisions were made to put corrective measures in place on time. If this did not happen, the NPA would have been in a worse off situation of not being able to meet the wage bill and ensure that salaries are paid. It is also very important to recognise that the NDPP is not the accounting officer of the NPA.
Financial accounting for the organisation is the responsibility of the DG of Justice, who has delegated her duties to the CEO of the NPA. To report the financial crisis the way you do, denies all this context and rather suggests something sinister about Adv Jiba’s leardership.
3. With respect to Glynnis Breytenbach you refer to the suspension of Glynnis Breytenbach, in support of your odd observation that Adv Jiba has had a tumultuous stint. It may be necessary to point out that the one challenge that could have added strength to your accusation – Adv Breytenbach’s claim that her suspension was unlawful, was dismissed by the Bargaining Council, which found that there was no flaw in the process.
Interestingly, maybe you missed it, considering that I never picked it up in your newspaper or your tweets even though you have been following this case very keenly. Perhaps this did not fit in conveniently with your narrative of something sinister in the background. The disciplinary hearing process has not yet concluded and therefore has not made findings on whether there is any veracity to her accusation that her suspension was to protect Richard Mdluli from prosecution. It is therefore important that you leave out your own unfounded conclusions when you report, and rather leave this to the legal process that has been officially tasked to make a finding in this respect.
