Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) CEO and registrar Dr David Motau has lost his Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) bid to overturn his suspension, after only two months in office, over fraud and corruption charges. Motau’s actions were described as “self-serving” and he was ordered to pay costs.
The opposed application had initially been set down for hearing in the Urgent Court, but was struck from the roll for lack of urgency. The respondents were the Minister of Health, the President of the HPCSA and the HPCSA itself. Motau contended that the decision to suspend him was “irrational in that the facts upon which it is premised are irrelevant”.
In August 2021, then Acting Health Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi placed Motau on suspension after allegations of fraud and corruption against him. Motau, who had previously been the head of Free State Health, was then two months into his newly assumed position as CEO/Registrar of the HPCSA.
Motau was accused of contravening the Public Finance Management Act and was released on R5,000 bail after appearing in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court.
Concerned by these developments, and in order to protect the integrity of the HPCSA, the Minister in consultation with the HPRCSA’s president, decided to place Motau on precautionary suspension with a view to subjecting him to a disciplinary hearing for his failure to disclose, prior to or during his interview for the position of the Registrar, that he had been under criminal investigation.
A the date of this hearing, the disciplinary proceedings could not be commenced according what the Respondents termed Motau’s “obstructionism”. Motau furnished a doctor’s certificate suggesting that the effects of medication he was taking would impede him from participating meaningfully in the disciplinary hearing.
Judge Mandla Mbongwe found that Motau’s contention that the decision was irrational was not supported by fact. The acting minister had followed all procedures, in line with the provisions of the law, and he had suffered no prejudice.
Not only was Motau legally obligated to disclose the proceedings against him but “worse still is the fact that the duration of criminal cases is undeterminable …This information was relevant for the decision whether to appoint him or not, considering that his new position was for a fixed period of 5 years. The failure to disclose it could only be deliberate and self-serving.”
Mbongwe wrote that a “disconcerting fact” in the case was Motau’s “oblivion to the seriousness of the charges against him. He makes light of the list of contraventions of quite a number of sections of the Public Finance Management Act brought against him.”
“I am satisfied that there has been compliance with the provisions of the law in the first respondent’s exercise of her statutory power, and that the need to do so had arisen,” Mbongwe writes in his judgment. “The applicant’s contention that the decision of the first respondent is irrational is not supported by the facts. Consequently, the application ought to fail.”
Motau_v_Minister
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