Ekurhuleni ends Mkhwanazi's contract after ten months on suspension

Ekurhuleni has ended its employment relationship with Julius Mkhwanazi, the deputy commissioner of the metro’s police department, ten months after he was suspended from the post.

As eNCA reported on 18 September, the City announced the termination on Friday, saying the decision followed a disciplinary process and a report from its human resources department.

The City’s head of communications, Phakamile Mbengashe, said the City Manager acted on the recommendation of the disciplinary committee together with a comprehensive HR report.

“We can confirm as a City that the employment relationship with Mr. Julius Mkhwanazi has been terminated,” Mbengashe said.

What the City says drove the decision

Mbengashe set out three factors. Mkhwanazi faces multiple pending criminal cases. He was denied bail and remains in custody. And the City judged that his continued association with the metro carried reputational risk.

The practical problem, in the City’s account, was time. With Mkhwanazi in custody and his cases unresolved, the disciplinary process could not run to a conclusion, and no one could say when it would. The City Manager concluded that the relationship had to be severed rather than left open indefinitely.

The City has not published the HR report or the disciplinary committee’s findings, and it has not said what the pending cases are or where they stand on the court roll.

Why this matters beyond one contract

The EMPD is Ekurhuleni’s own metro police service, separate from the South African Police Service, and it polices a metro of roughly four million people across towns including Germiston, Benoni, Boksburg, Kempton Park and Tembisa. Its officers carry out traffic enforcement, bylaw enforcement and crime prevention in one of the busiest industrial and freight corridors on the continent, with OR Tambo International Airport inside its boundary.

A deputy commissioner sits near the top of that structure. When a post at that level is vacant, the effect is felt in command decisions, in the discipline of officers below, and in how quickly the service answers the public on cases it is handling.

The suspension itself ran for ten months, which is a long time by the standards the Labour Court has applied to suspensions that drag on without a hearing. That delay is now moot for Mkhwanazi, because the City has closed the employment chapter rather than the disciplinary one.

What the law says, and what happens to the cases

Termination of employment does not touch the criminal matters. Those sit with the National Prosecuting Authority and the courts, and they proceed on their own timetable regardless of who signs the payroll.

A person who is dismissed may refer an unfair dismissal dispute to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration within thirty days, or to a bargaining council with jurisdiction. That is a right, not a prediction, and no such referral has been announced.

The City has not said whether it will fill the deputy commissioner post, whether it will do so on a permanent or acting basis, or what the timeline is. Those are the questions that now sit with the City Manager’s office.

What residents will notice

For a resident of Tembisa or Katlehong, the visible questions are narrower than the politics of the case. Who commands the EMPD’s operations in the interim. Whether complaint lines and case feedback keep working at the same pace. And whether the metro publishes anything about the vacancy, as it would for any other senior post it advertises.

The City has been clear about its reasoning, and it has put a named official on the record to explain it. What it has not done is put the underlying documents in front of the public, and the disciplinary record is now the only place where that reasoning can be tested.

The next dated steps are the criminal cases themselves. Until a court sets a date, the City’s decision stands as the final word on the employment question.

Source: eNCA, Ekurhuleni Municipality explains why Mkhwanazi was fired.