When Williams won the tender in 2019 to work as a compliance officer providing support for Sharpley there was an outcry about the alleged personal relationship between them. The concern was that Sharpley had contracted Williams to do the work that could have been assigned to more than 20 senior permanent officials.
The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Public Works is wasting taxpayers’ money on the salary of its suspended head of department (HOD), Dr Gaster Sharpley, who has been under investigation since 2020 for allegedly awarding an unnecessary contract to an associate of his, Quinton Williams.
Sharpley’s associate, Williams, is suing the provincial government for more than R3 million after the Pietermaritzburg High Court ruled that the public works department erred in suspending his rather questionable contract, which was worth more than R2m per year.
In November 2020 the then KZN premier Sihle Zikalala announced Sharpley’s suspension so that investigations could be conducted unhindered “into a number of areas related to governance and administrative matters in the department”.
It is unclear how much Sharpley earns annually and how much he has earned while at home, but according to a July 2020 advertisement for the provincial treasury’s HOD position, the annual salary was over R1.7m plus a 10% non-pensionable allowance.
A source within the public works stated that because Sharpley was not dismissed, he was entitled to his full salary and all benefits associated with his position. An unsuccessful attempt to contact Sharpley was made. Williams, who admitted frequently communicating with Sharpley during his suspension, said: “I have WhatsApped him … He states that he does not wish to comment.”
Violated the law
The provincial government may have violated the law by suspending Sharpley for more than one and a half years without concluding his case. Public Service Precautionary Suspensions Guide of the Department of Public Service and Administration states: “The period of precautionary suspension must be reasonable and justifiable, but should not exceed 60 calendar days.
“The employee must return to work if the hearing is not concluded within 60 calendar days; however, this does not preclude the employer from continuing the disciplinary process, nor does it exempt the employee from the allegations preferred against him/her.”
‘Sharpley is delaying the process by introducing new issues whenever the case is about to be heard.’
It is believed that one of the reasons for the investigation was that Sharpley had given Williams a three-year contract beginning in 2019 to perform duties in his (Sharpley’s) office that could have been performed by permanent staff.
Acting HOD Siboniso Majola stated that Sharpley remained suspended with full pay pending the conclusion of the investigation. “I am not compensated for acting in this position because I made it clear that I cannot be paid when someone else is paid (as HOD) with government funds,” he said.
When asked why the forensic investigation was taking so long, Majola responded: “He (Sharpley) is delaying the process by introducing new issues whenever the case is about to be heard.”
The Service Level Agreement
In the meantime, according to the Service Level Agreement (SLA) of 2019, public works had agreed to pay Williams R2.1m per year for the duration of the three-year contract.
However, the contract, which was set to expire in January 2022, was suspended in December 2020 after Zikalala initiated an investigation. The Pietermaritzburg High Court ruled a year ago that Quinton Williams Consulting could resume its work at the department pending the final resolution.
However, Williams claimed he was prevented from returning to the office, and he is now suing the department for R3m for the 14 months he was unable to work. This year, Williams’s final relief case will be argued before the same court.
“I’m not sure what the amount would be, but it would be about R3m because I was suspended with 14 months remaining on my contract,” he said.
According to Majola, the department would not pay for the uncompleted work because, per the consultant contract, Williams would only work if there was work for him. “Unfortunately (Williams’s services) are the duplication of the work (because) the work he was contracted for was the work that should have been done by the office of the HOD and there was no need for the contract and for the department to appoint a consultant.”
Provincial government spokesperson Lennox Mabaso is yet to respond to questions sent to him.
R2.1m annual salary
Explaining how he reached the amount of R3m, Williams made a calculation of how much interest would his R2.1m annual salary have generated in the period of 14 months and beyond. “Now the interest has been going for 18 months, which is now R250 000 plus VAT and there is an escalation of 4.5% CPIX plus the interest is being charged at 8.5% per annum.”
Williams had on July 3 invoiced the KZN public works demanding the payment of more than R3.2m.
When Williams won the tender in 2019 to work as a compliance officer providing support for Sharpley there was an outcry about the alleged personal relationship between them. The concern was that Sharpley had contracted Williams to do the work that could have been assigned to more than 20 senior permanent officials.
The allegation was that the contract was influenced by the fact that Sharpley and Williams were homeboys from Eastern Cape and had previously worked together in that province.
Following the outcry, Zikalala commissioned the investigation to probe the relationship, which Williams said he had declared prior to the awarding of the contract. The court found that the suspension was based on the department’s investigation.
However, Pietermaritzburg High Court acting Judge Hoosen Gani last year cleared William of any wrongdoings and ordered that he be allowed to resume his duties at the department pending the final relief.
Judge Gani ruled that it was wrong of the department to suspend Williams’s services based on the probe against Sharpley. He also found that the department had failed to provide the court with the detailed nature of its investigation.
“But the papers suggest that the applicant’s services were suspended since the applicant held a relationship with Dr Sharpley as Dr Sharpley was the subject of the investigation, the award of the tender to the applicant was also the subject of the investigation,” read Gani’s judgment.
Judge Gani also said there were no specific allegations of unlawful conduct or misconduct made against Williams or his company. He ordered that: “The respondents (department) are directed to comply with the terms of the SLA and to allow the applicant to resume the provisions of the services in terms of the SLA.”
‘If there is no work for him, what do we need to do? As the head of the department, I cannot outsource my work.’
Despite the court order, the department continued to disallow Williams access to the office and also did not give him work to do.
“They told me to stay at home and not come to the office and I must work from home. Mr Majola never advised or ever responded to any of those emails – not even to say what he needs me to work on as per my SLA. I could also not take up any other work because I was contractually bound by the court order,” he said.
Majola said the department complied with the court order by instructing Williams to work from home “since it was the time of the Covid-19. But only if there is work for him to do. If there is no work for him, what do we need to do? As the head of the department, I cannot outsource my work.”
The History of Dr Gaster Sharpley and Quinton Williams:
- The relationship between Sharpley and Williams dates back to when they worked for the Buffalo City Municipality in East London.
- When Williams was working on a five-year contract between 2002 and 2007, as general manager, in 2006 Sharpley, whom he did not know at the time, was employed to be in charge of the Buffalo City Development Agency.
- Sharpley later became a municipal manager and Williams reported to him.
Williams revealed that when Sharpley left Buffalo City for Eastern Cape’s Department of Human Settlement around 2010 or 2011, he recruited him to follow him and work on a one-year contract “to help with improving performance”.
“They then extended the position to a three-year or five-year contract, and I applied and I was successful and I worked under him helping in his office as I did at public works (in KZN) with all the matters trying to get a clean audit.
“Then when he was asked to take over in Natal (KZN public works) and he then asked me if I would be interested (to follow him), and he said ‘I would be putting up a tender’. So I applied like anyone else,” Williams said.
He said over the years of working together, some trust had developed between him and Sharpley. “They suspended him (Sharpley) and they tried to take him to a disciplinary hearing and he is sitting at home being paid at the moment for the last 18 months.
“I still communicate with him (Sharpley) because he and I are looking at doing work together, and I said to him maybe we should get a consultancy work together. Yes, I do discuss consultancy work and other work with him at the end of the day because I had a working relationship with him for over 15 years,” said Williams.
| bongani.hans@falcons.org.za | investigations@falcons.org.za
