Cape Town - A former employee of the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) – who decided to resign rather than face charges of sexual and financial misconduct – has lost a bid to get the high court to unblock his Personal and Salary System, or Persal, number and allow him to take up another government job.
During the period 1988 to 2013 Piet Hermanis was employed by the WCED in the Boland in a variety of managerial positions.
The Persal number entitled him to be remunerated in terms of the WCED’s payment system via a direct deposit into his bank account, and is applicable to all employees in the public service, both national and provincial.
In February 2013, while employed in the Cape Winelands Education District, Hermanis was charged with misconduct arising out of allegations of financial mismanagement, and conducting an intimate relationship with a student under his authority as the erstwhile manager of the Adult Education and Training Centre in Worcester.
Using the provisions of the Employment of Educators Act, the WCED resolved that the applicant’s resignation be regarded as a dismissal on account of misconduct.
This, in turn, led to the blocking of his Persal number on the national system which rendered him unemployable in any position in the public service.
The Persal number issue followed Hermanis throughout his attempts to be employed in other government posts, including in 2018 when he applied to and secured a job at the Department of Correctional Services (DCS), as chairperson of the parole board for the Brandvlei Correctional Services Management Area.
When the DCS discovered the terms of his dismissal from the WCED, it accused him of failing to disclose these when he applied for the position. The department suspended him and asked him to provide the reasons for this non-disclosure.
Hermanis approached the High Court in February 2020, asking that the WCED remove the Persal block; and that the DCS remove his suspension and pay him his outstanding remuneration.
In his ruling, Judge Patrick Gamble said Hermanis advanced no particular legal basis for entitlement to relief against the WCED, but that he was free to take his case with regard to the DCS matter to the Labour Court.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za