Taking a company vehicle home without authorisation came at a heavy price for a Gibela Rail Transport Consortium employee who was then hijacked outside his home and later fired by his company. His dismissal was later overturned by the CCMA, which found it to be substantively unfair and reinstated William Dube with retrospective effect to the date of his dismissal.

Unhappy with this finding, Gibela Rail took the matter to the Johannesburg Labour Court. This court confirmed the ruling that he must be reinstated, but it added a sanction that Dube must receive a final warning for unauthorised use of a vehicle, valid for twelve months from the date it is issued.

Dube was earlier dismissed for misconduct after admitting guilt to a charge of unauthorised use of a company vehicle and being found guilty of providing misleading information about the time of a hijacking incident during which the company vehicle was stolen.

Dube was a warehouse supervisor who had been employed by Gibela since 2017. He had been given permission to use a company vehicle to attend training on May 25, 2021, at Riverside Lake near Nigel, but he had not asked for permission to take it home.

When he arrived at his home in Soshanguve, he was accosted by two armed men at his front gate who ordered him out of the vehicle and to hand over his car keys and cell phone. They then instructed him to lie face down on the ground, whereafter they drove off with the vehicle.

He walked to the Soshanguve police station from his house and reported the incident. The vehicle had a tracking device and was recovered the following day. Apart from facing a disciplinary hearing for the unauthorised use, he was also charged with issuing a false statement, as the times cited by him in various statements as to when the hijacking took place differed.

The thrust of the charge was that he had been dishonest, and there was a suggestion made during his cross-examination that he had been involved in the hijacking, but he was never accused of this. The site manager testified that the vehicle tracking report showed that the vehicle was stationary for about two minutes at eight that night in the street where Dube lived.

By contrast, a security incident report compiled by a third party stated that the incident took place at approximately six that evening and that he had reported the case at the police station two hours later.

In his sworn statement to the police, it was stated that he was approached by the hijackers shortly before nine that night. Dube explained that he was in shock and that it took about 20 minutes to walk to the police station from his house. After arriving, he had to wait his turn to be served before making the statement. At the time, his phone had been stolen, and he did not have a watch with him.

He also explained that on previous occasions he had asked if he could take the vehicle home, but on this occasion, he had not done so because he thought the training would end early. Although he should have returned the company vehicle to the workplace, he decided to drive the vehicle home because it was late and he was exhausted.

The labour court, meanwhile, did not fault his reinstatement but said a final warning was necessary.

zelda.venter@inl.co.za

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