Pretoria – Staff at Freedom Park have been left baffled after a qualification verification exercise revealed that a senior employee has a dodgy PHD, but management insists it was an understandable anomaly.
A whistleblower told The Bulrushes that other errant staff were let go for failing to prove their qualifications; However, a senior employee at Freedom Park, whose PHD failed the verification test, remains employed.
“Four employees in the previous verification were summarily dismissed,” said the whistleblower, adding that “One of the cleaners died through stress-related matters of their dismissal”.
Murmurs of staffers’ discontent appear to have reached the ears of the bigger heads at Freedom Park.
Acting CEO Radichaba Malapane has moved to assure staff and members of the council that all was in order after the dodgy PHD was exposed.
In an email seen by The Bulrushes, Malapane told staff and members of the council that: “Following a process of establishing and verifying the status of an academic qualification (PHD in Theology) assumed to be possessed by Mr. Andrew Arries, who is currently serving as the acting company secretary, it was confirmed that the institution from which the qualification was obtained was not a duly registered and recognised higher education institution”.
The institution was not named.
Acting CEO Malapane added: “Having accepted this outcome, Mr. Arries has agreed that with immediate effect, he will discontinue the use of the honorific title of ‘Dr.’.”
Malapane further stated in the email that management had considered the matter carefully and wished to clarify that Arries’ appointment to both his substantive position of assistant company secretary and his current acting appointment was not based on the PHD qualification.
“His LLB degree, which constitutes the relevant qualification for his position, has been duly verified,” the CEO wrote.
“Furthermore, there is no evidence that he derived any employment benefit, financial advantage, study assistance, or other privilege from the PHD qualification
“Based on the information available, this appears to be an unfortunate instance in which Mr. Arries himself was misled regarding the status of the institution concerned.”
Malapane said there was no evidence that acting company secretary, Arries, intentionally sought to misrepresent his qualification or to mislead Fredom Park
But disgruntled staff said the move was proof of double standards applied during the verification of academic qualifications.
They alleged that during this qualification verification, a senior employee in the security cluster, whose name is known to The Bulrushes, was unable to produce his matric certificate.
Instead, he simply wrote an affidavit stating that he passed Matric many years ago, and that was the end of the matter.
“Cleaners were dismissed for faking matric certificates… Why was the same rule not used for this Dr. that doesn’t use the PhD for his work… cleaners do not need matric to clean floors,” complained a staff member who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“Andrew Arries has been an acting company secretary for more than a year with his fake PHD.”
Commenting further, Malapane said: “While the discovery has understandably been personally distressing for him, he [Arries] has accepted that this matter be fully disclosed and corrective measures – being the immediate discontinuation of the honorific title ‘Dr’ – be implemented.
“We trust that everyone will treat this matter with the professionalism, fairness and respect that it deserves.”
Developing story…
Arries and the CEO could not be reached for comment at the weekend.
