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The CCMA is not a higher education institution which can offer a diploma. It offers a commissioners’ training programme, which is assessed as per set criteria. - CCMA

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Sizwe sama Yende

A labour relations director in Limpopo premier Stanley Mathabatha’s office has finally been arrested for allegedly embellishing his CV - four years since a union reported him to the Hawks.

The elite police unit arrested Michael Maseko on Wednesday. He appeared in the Polokwane Magistrate’s Court on Thursday facing a fraud charge. The court remanded Maseko in custody until his bail application  on April 23.

Maseko’s arrest follows immense pressure that the  National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) has been putting on the Hawks since last year. Nehawu had been concerned that since it laid several charges with the Hawks in 2020 against Mathabatha, claiming that he was aware of fraudulent activities in his office but turned a blind eye to them, no progress was being made.

It is bizarre why Maseko falsified his CV by claiming that he had a diploma accredited by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) when he applied for the job in 2013, because he apparently had adequate qualifications and experience to snatch the job without the ‘CCMA diploma.’

Maseko claimed in his CV that he obtained the diploma after passing modules in substantive law, jurisdictional rulings, conciliations, managing dismissals, and arbitration 1 and 2. However, the CCMA only offers in-house training programmes, not qualifications registered with the South African Qualifications Authority.

This was a five-month course he attended in 2005.

In response to Nehawu about the diploma, the CCMA said: “The CCMA is not a higher education institution which can offer a diploma. It offers a commissioners’ training programme, which is assessed as per set criteria.”

The union complained that they had provided every information to the Hawks by 2020, but they had not acted - allegedly because they were “captured.” 

Maseko’s CV, which The People’s Eye has seen, indicated that he held a diploma in labour law and had served as an arbitrator for various councils and even owned a consulting firm.

The relationship between Mathabatha and Nehawu has been tense.  The union has been claiming that Maseko was Mathabatha’s henchman who targeted activists for dismissals.

Limpopo government spokesperson, Ndavhe Ramakuela, had not responded to written question by the time this story was published. Ramakuela said that there would be a meeting about this matter to take a decision. Eyes are on Limpopo director-general, Nape Nchabeleng, as he may be expected to suspend Maseko and launch an internal investigation. 

However, a response from the premier’s office last year denied that there was any information on file about Maseko’s qualifications obtained from the CCMA.

Mathabatha’s office dismissed the allegations as unfounded and claimed that Maseko had the necessary qualification, approved by SAQA when he was appointed on January 1 2013.

“Please look at the first qualification Mr Maseko mentioned, the one from the Graduate Institute of Management and Technology, diploma labour law – it is NQF level 6. That alone qualified him for the position, even without the teacher’s diploma and the CCMA certificate,” a spokesperson said at the time.