A whistleblower who helped the SIU uncover millions in fraud at NSFAS has his job back.
Image: Outa
Following a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) probe into allegations of corruption and maladministration at the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), a whistleblower who helped expose concerns over a multimillion-rand office lease is set to get his job back.
Alfred Abrahams, a former facilities manager at NSFAS, provided key information to investigators after being referred to the SIU by the organisation's internal forensic audit lead. He was later dismissed for breaching company policies after disclosing information linked to the investigation.
However, the Labour Court found that Abrahams had been fired for making protected disclosures rather than for breaching policy and ordered NSFAS to reinstate him with full retrospective effect.
NSFAS is currently under administration after Higher Education and Training Minister Buti Manamela intervened over what he described as prolonged governance instability, legal concerns and operational weaknesses within the institution.
The minister said concerns over the legality of the NSFAS board's constitution, combined with board resignations and ongoing governance disputes, left government with little choice but to step in.
Manamela said the intervention was necessary because NSFAS is entrusted with billions of rands in public funds and plays a critical role in funding higher education opportunities for poor and working-class students.
Abrahams’ disclosures centred on a Cape Town office lease that he said left NSFAS paying about R2 million a month in rent for a building that was larger than required and initially stood largely empty.
The Auditor-General later confirmed a number of the concerns he had raised, including procurement failures, inadequate approvals and the risk of fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
The SIU's broader NSFAS investigation ultimately recovered R1.18 billion and the student funding body remains under administration while implementing reforms and recommendations arising from the probe.
The ruling means Abrahams, a former facilities manager at NSFAS, could return to the organisation he accused of ignoring repeated warnings about a procurement process that he believed resulted in the student funding agency leasing substantially more office space than it required.
In the ruling, the court noted that Abrahams gathered documentary evidence, which he “explained… he did… out of fear of victimisation and in order to preserve evidence for potential future proceedings, as he believed he might be targeted once his disclosures became known”.
Judge R Lagrange found that Abrahams' dismissal in May 2023 was automatically unfair under the Protected Disclosures Act and ordered NSFAS to reinstate him with full retrospective effect, including back pay from the date of his dismissal until his return to work.
“All the evidence points to the overwhelming cause of his dismissal being his disclosure of the information of various acts of wrongdoing on the part of NSFAS management,” the judge found.
Costs were awarded against NSFAS. "As a matter of fairness and law, I see no reason why he should have to bear any of his legal costs of fighting to overturn his dismissal, which was the result of a disciplinary process instituted with the ulterior motive of punishing a genuine whistle-blower."
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