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Picture Courtesy: Tom Xolani’s via X/Twitter
Phishego Mathipa
(The Post News) – The former manager of the University of Fort Hare, Tom Xolani, who was fired for mismanagement, still holds a prominent position in a trade union. It is claimed that he faced charges of harassment and gross incompetence in December.
On Sunday, he confirmed with the Sowetan newspaper that he is contesting his unjust termination at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration (CCMA). Tom said, “I am challenging the institution concerning both substance and procedure.”
The Ex-manager claims that he was unfairly dismissed as he was kidnapped and tortured by police a year ago. However, his dismissal had a case of alleged threat through WhatsApp to a senior staff member, claiming her life was in danger.
He sent the senior staff lady WhatsApp messages in early January 2023. He later said it was a joke. Even after so many stunts and charges Tom had faced, he believes that his case will stand at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).
Tom expressed with Sowetan that the chairperson sat on the DC, Nthabiseng Mokaba seemed to flout the procedure for the hearing. The chairperson is one of the people arrested for fraud and corruption. Also with accused number 3, Paul Tladi his former line manager. They knew there was something fishy in terms of the procedure.
The arbitration is set for July 2024, according to the charge sheet presented to Sowetan. Tom allegedly told the senior staff lady not to drive her car between home and work, she was being followed by people trying to kill a professor at the university.
His joke or rather say ‘tip-off’ gave the woman the impression that Tom had information about her life. That includes her security because this goes far from just text messages. It is alleged that he approached the woman in the human resources office and pointed out to her that her vehicle was similar to one of the professor’s cars.
By then the woman did not take it as a joke she responded that should anything happen to her, Tom is the first suspect. “As a result, the woman has been diagnosed with psychological trauma, lives in constant fear, and panics when she suspects any vehicle following her” Sowetan reports.
There are reports that the university’s fleet manager Petrus Roets and vice-chancellor Sakhela Buhlung’s bodyguard Richard Vesele were gunned down in separate attacks between May 2022 and January 2023.
The university spokesperson said “The University of Fort Hare applied institutional rules, policies, and procedures to ensure that disciplinary hearing was procedural and substantively fair. The disciplinary hearing had an independent chair”.
Tom and another colleague businessman Collins Heshule were seen in April 2023 interested in police investigations into killings at the university. The pair claimed that in separate incidents they were taken from their homes in Alice and East London. Respectively by members of the police’s national intervention unit to a “black site” where they were tortured.
Tom mentioned that he had opened a case against the officials who had tortured him. The case is currently being investigated by the Independent Police Investigative Unit. Additionally, he mentioned that he had filed a lawsuit against the police regarding the torture.
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