Pretoria - Sharing a password with colleagues can have serious consequences, as an accounting officer at a municipality in Mpumalanga discovered.
The man, identified as AM Malatsi in a judgment issued by the Labour Court sitting in Joburg, was employed at the Gert Sibanda municipality in Ermelo as an accountant.
He was allocated a computer with his password, which it later emerged he had shared with a number of his colleagues.
This practice came to light after a forensic investigation revealed financial irregularities, with a potential loss of R9.7 million after someone tried to access the municipality’s cash internal portal from Malatsi’s computer.
He was charged with misconduct, as the municipality believed it was him who tried to access the portal.
He was subsequently found guilty and fired.
On arbitration to the bargaining council it was found that, while his hands were not clean, his dismissal was too harsh and he was reinstated.
However, it only came to light later he had shared his password with a number of his colleagues.
As this was against the municipality’s IT policy, which was specific passwords may not be shared, further charges were brought against him for failing to adhere to this policy.
He was fired again.
Another unfair dismissal dispute was lodged by him, and referred to the bargaining council.
This time he lost, as it was found his dismissal was fair.
Unhappy with this outcome, Malatsi, with the aid of his labour union, turned to the Labour Court to have his dismissal set aside, as he felt the second time around amounted to double jeopardy.
Malatsi joined the municipality in 2009 as an intern and was permanently employed in September 2010 as an accountant: creditor.
In early 2012, the bank alerted the municipality there were possible fraudulent activities going on and the services of PwC were procured to conduct a forensic investigation into the allegations.
At that point, Malatsi was working as an accountant in the finance department and he was allocated a computer, with his own password, but he did not have authority to access the cash focus account via the internet.
The computers of the employees working in the finance department were checked as part of the investigation and irregularities were detected.
PwC found several attempts were made from Malatsi’s computer to access the cash focus internet portal to the municipality’s Absa account.
This led to his first dismissal, which was later overturned.
But, during that hearing Malatsi explained he was introduced to a culture of teamwork, and as such, his colleagues could use his computer as much as he could use their computers, with the password.
He even wrote his password on the calendar which was on the computer desk, to be used by his colleagues.
He said about 10 of his colleagues knew his password.
He said it was a normal practice to share computers and passwords, which were written on the calendars on the computer desks.
This led to further charges against him after he was reinstated and he was fired again.
The Labour Court, in confirming his dismissal, rejected his double double jeopardy defence.
This term derives from criminal law and provides that an accused person cannot be tried twice for the same offence. But the Labour Court found that the principle of double jeopardy did not apply in this case.
The court also found while Malatsi still did not accept he had done anything wrong in sharing his password, the municipality viewed the conduct in a serious light.
It found dismissal was an appropriate sanction.
Pretoria News