FIRED MATATA’S BONIFACE SPILLS DETAILS OF AFFAIR

MBABANE – Fired acting CEO of Matata Group of Companies Boniface Mdluli has confirmed having an affair with a female employee. However, he said it was a platonic relationship.

Mdluli said he only shared a passionate kiss with the said employee.
He was officially dismissed from the company on June 17 this year after being found guilty on charges of misconduct, bordering around sexual harassment of a staff member.

He said he had been with the company for close to eight years.
In an interview following his dismissal, Mdluli denied harassing the said female employee, who is based in the Human Resources department and is married, save to say they had a relationship, though it was not sexual.

“I never had sex with his woman I’m accused of sexually harassing. We were just close and would exchange messages. That is all. This whole thing is a set-up,” Mdluli alleged. He confirmed though that in one instance, they shared a kiss in his office.

He narrated how close he was to the implicated staffer and was taken aback when she reported him for sexually harassing her.
He recalled one instance in February 5, this year, when she accompanied him to his office and planted a passionate kiss on his lips after Mdluli had been upset after interacting with a customer. Mdluli said the woman kissed him in sympathy after the argument with the customer.

“I had a brief misunderstanding with a customer within the shop and almost lost my cool. While I was walking to my office, she followed me inside and kissed me on the lips. She said she was comforting me after the confrontation with the customer.  Indeed, I responded to the kiss and that is where this whole issue started. I believe she kissed me intentionally, as a set-up,” he claimed.

He claimed there was no element of sexual harassment at all, especially because the said female employee was also a close family friend of his for the past eight years.
“She knows my wife; they call each other, even travel together outside the country. She called and congratulated my wife after the birth of our child. She even sent a message to her friend, saying she was happy that my wife got a baby girl. How could I then have harassed her? Everyone within the company knew of our close friendship,” Mdluli said.

He further mentioned an incident that happened last November when some employees where travelling to South Africa for a graduation ceremony. He said he was part of that group and the female employee insisted on travelling with him in his car. “When we got to SA, she booked a room right next to mine and ensured that the one nearby was empty.

However, it was discovered that some employees had no rooms, including my PA (Personal Assistant) who I then gave the empty room to. The next day there were rumours that we had spent the night together, which were supposedly spread by her (implicated employee) but she denied ever telling this to anyone,” Mdluli said.

He said he was of the view that the employee was being used in all this to tarnish his name because certain people were jealous of him.
He gave out names of people behind the ploy to destroy him, something which he mentioned during his disciplinary hearing.

jealous

“I know that some people were extremely jealous of me to the point that one senior employee once asked me if I was gay and I questioned why he was asking me this. I actually informed him that I viewed the question as an insult. His response was that being called gay was not an insult in other countries but only in Swaziland. He said he was asking me this because he had not heard of me having any sexual relations with the staff yet I managed about 900 of them,” he alleged.

When asked how his wife was taking all this, he said she was surprised, especially because she has known the female employee to be her friend.
“She knows that this is all company politics. It’s a pity that all this happened just after she had given birth to our child,” Mdluli explained.

The female employee said she would not respond to any questions over the phone and requested a questionnaire to be emailed to her.
At the time of compiling this report, she had not responded.

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