A slap across the face by a Tshwane chief licensing officer, meted out to a member of the public who was trying to renew her driver’s licence at the Centurion licence office, has cost the officer his job.

The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) tried in vain before the Johannesburg Labour Court to have the dismissal of licence officer Silulami Mvinjelwa, a shop steward, overturned.

It all started when the officer refused to accept a certified copy of a woman’s ID document. An altercation apparently ensued between him and the woman, only identified in the labour court judgment as Ms Basson.

This, according to Basson’s evidence, led to the slap, which Mvinjelwa denied. According to him, he was only trying to help her by directing her to his supervisor, but he said she called him a “mother f…ing K….”. This was denied by Basson.

Basson testified that she accompanied her sister to renew her driver’s licence, and after waiting in the queue for hours, Mvinjelwa refused to assist them. He, according to Basson, told her sister that he would not accept a certified copy of an ID and that he would require the original.

They tried to explain to him that the certified copy was accepted, but he rudely ordered them to leave. After leaving the cubicle, Basson testified that she had remarked, “this is fu*ked up,” after which Mvinjelwa walked around his cubicle and confronted her in full view of the public.

He slapped her on the right side of the face, she said, and a plainclothes policeman came to her rescue and took them to the boardroom to try and calm down.

Mvinjelwa’s evidence was that he did not assault anyone on that day. He said the two ladies came to renew a driver’s licence, and the one he was helping did not have her original ID, as required.

He explained to her several times that an ID was required, but they did not want to hear him out. He asked the lady to go to his supervisor to verify the information, but Basson kept on interfering and called him a “mother f…ing K….”. He got outside of his cubicle to show them his supervisor, he said.

The police came to investigate the commotion and took them to the boardroom to listen to her story. He was then told to assist them, and he did, Mvinjelwa testified.

Another licence office employee who worked in a nearby cubicle said he heard Mvinjelwa saying, “who are you calling the F’word,” but he did not see any slapping, nor could he hear what the two women were saying.

While Mvinjelwa vehemently denied slapping Basson, his lawyer, while cross-examining her following her evidence, put it to her that his client will testify that he had only slapped her with an open hand.

Following a disciplinary hearing on charges of misconduct, Mvinjelwa was fired. The matter was then referred to the South African Local Bargaining Council, where an arbitrator found his dismissal to be both substantially and procedurally fair.

Unhappy with this verdict, his union turned to the labour court on his behalf and argued that the process was unfair, as the union was not notified prior to misconduct complaints being laid against Mvinjelwa.

The union also complained that Basson never handed in a medical form to confirm her injuries, thus the slap never happened. But Acting Judge L Vukeya concluded that his dismissal was fair as his version of events was improbable and not sustained by evidence.

zelda.venter@inl.co.za

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