Former Mpumalanga prosecutions boss Matric Luphondo. (Phill Magakoe/Gallo Pictures)
Matric Luphondo, the previous performing director of public prosecutions in Mpumalanga, has been fired following a labour arbitration course of as his prison trial for corruption continues, the Nationwide Prosecuting Authority (NPA) mentioned on Friday.
Luphondo was discovered responsible by the arbitrator of bribery, contravening clause 4.3.4 (a) of the NPA code of ethics and bringing the organisation into disrepute.
He was dismissed on Wednesday, NPA spokesperson Mthunzi Mhaga mentioned.
“The NPA adheres to strict anti-corruption insurance policies and practices and has a zero-tolerance method to corruption inside its ranks,” Mhaga mentioned, including that Luphondo’s sanction underscored the authority’s dedication to rooting out corruption together with “inside its personal senior ranks”.
“Adv Luphondo, particularly as a senior supervisor within the NPA, ought to have acted always with the best moral requirements and executed his duties with out worry, favour or prejudice.”
Luphondo was positioned on cautionary suspension on 4 April 2021, days after he was arrested together with Hawks lieutenant-colonel Ayanda Plaatje and Kebone Masange, the top of the Mpumalanga division of human settlements.
He’s on trial within the Pretoria excessive court docket for attempting to bribe senior Pretoria state prosecutor Andrew Mphanga with money and a bottle of effective whisky in change for dropping costs of fraud and contravention of immigration legal guidelines in opposition to Masange.
Mphanga instantly reported the bribery try to his superiors and to the police.
Luphondo allegedly met him in a McDonald’s restaurant in Arcadia in March 2021 and informed him Masange was “keen to do something to get out of the case”.
At a second assembly, Mphanga testified, Luphondo handed him a field containing R5 000 in money and a bottle of 18-year-old Glenfiddich, and steered additional gratification would observe.
Luphondo tried unsuccessfully to have the labour court docket declare the disciplinary course of illegal.
He pleaded not responsible to all costs within the arbitration listening to, He submitted that the proof was fabricated and additional that the NPA couldn’t carry disciplinary costs in opposition to him based mostly on prison allegations within the absence of a court docket conviction.
This objection was dismissed as a result of the burden of proof in disciplinary and prison proceedings are totally different.
The arbitrator discovered that it was extremely unlikely that Mphanga wouldn’t solely fabricate proof however report it to the deputy director of public prosecutions in Pretoria and the police, concluding: “The model of the employer is much extra possible than the model of the worker.”
Luphondo had been tasked with monitoring proof that emerged from the Zondo fee with a view to formulating costs in opposition to these implicated in state seize.
He was additionally one of many candidates for the place of nationwide director of public prosecutions, which went to Shamila Batohi in 2019.