ADVOCATE VAS SONI'S RESIGNATION WAS LONG OVERDUE

NEHAWU has noted and welcomes the resignation of the Head of the Special Investigations Unit {SIU}, Advocate Vas Soni. We believe that his resignation was long overdue and it is nothing but camouflaged surrender by a man, who knew that he had lost the confidence of his employees.

The reality is that Advocate Soni failed to provide the necessary leadership at SIU. Despite his best efforts and those of his sympathizers to present him publicly as a radical and cutting edge leader, he was in fact an intolerant and stuffy conformist, who became a very polarising figure within the institution.

He was not very obliging as a leader and flatly refused to accommodate the opinions of other stakeholders in his decision making process. Eventually, he learned like all his predecessors that the price for getting stakeholder relations wrong is organizational instability.

He got himself on a collision course with the workers and to try and present himself as a tough leader, he developed an unhelpful micro management style. He interfered with all operations in the organization and when called to account on his decisions, he shifted the blame back to the same supervisors and managers, he undermined. Several senior managers resigned due to high levels of frustration and under his leadership, the SUI experienced the highest number of labour disputes.

Currently, the SIU has no governance structures because he unilaterally took all the decisions. The advocate surrounded himself with subservient people, who venerated him and approved of all his decisions without questioning them. They unfairly demoted employees and conspired to silence their critics through workplace victimisation.

He failed to ensure that there is transparency in the organization by condoning the irregular appointments of officials and the violation of the recruitment policy. Recently, he attempted to close down the North West office of the SIU, without proper consultation with stakeholders.

He failed to ensure that SIU champions issues of skills development in the workplace. The Skills Development and Employment Equity have collapsed. Since his arrival, he promised to present a strategic overview and organisational review to guide the direction of the organization and improve its performance. He failed to meet the deadline of the 09th of January 2015 and thus decided to bow out.

NEHAWU is a stakeholder at SIU and we will continuously play our role of representing the interests of the workers. We will not keep quiet when there are unsettling questions that remain unanswered and the well being of workers is compromised, no matter who is in charge. 

We hope that the next person to be appointed to lead the SIU will be clear, honest, decisive and purposeful with no preconceived ideas, but with the burning desire to stabilise the institution and lead it on its mandate of fighting graft and corruption without compromise.

Statement issued by Sizwe Pamla, NEHAWU Media Liaison Officer, January 28 2015

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