Wrangle over 'bogus' BEE jobs

Xolisa Phillip

A PORT Elizabeth businesswoman is being investigated by the Council for Debt Collectors (CDC) after being accused by a former employee of weaving a web of deceit in a bid to bag a debt-collection tender with global food giant Nestlé SA.

Collect A Debt owner Riana Ferreira, who until December served on the CDC, is alleged to have created bogus positions and beefed up employees' experience to bump up her company's black economic empowerment (BEE) credentials in a presentation slide submitted to Nestlé SA in Johannesburg. This allegation came to light after Ferreira's former employee, Zikhona Dlele, laid a formal complaint with the CDC.

Council legal officer Cynthia Gouws confirmed that a complaint had been laid by Dlele, also from Port Elizabeth.

"The nature of the complaint is that the debt collector [Ferreira] allegedly acted unprofessionally and contravened the [Debt Collectors] Act, its regulations and the code of conduct."

Gouws would not comment further on the complaint because the investigation was ongoing.

"Mrs Ferreira was a member of the council, but her term expired in December last year. She was the only woman debt collector on the council and is a member of the [council's] audit committee," Gouws said.

In a segment of the tender presentation titled "meet our team leaders", Dlele, a registered debt collector, was listed as Collect A Debt's head of customer services with "15 years of experience". Dlele said: "The position was not only nonexistent, I only joined the company in 2010. I am just a debt collector." The Herald has a copy of the presentation by Collect A Debt in which Dlele is presented as head of customer services.

However, Ferreira countered that this was a "mere presentation and not a fabrication". The businesswoman said she was baffled why Dlele was the only employee who had a problem. Ferreira, a finalist in the 2010 Business Women's Association's regional achiever awards in the emerging entrepreneur category, has questioned Dlele's timing: "Why did she not bring this up at the time? Why is she only pursuing this three months after the fact?"

Ferreira, a married mother of two from the leafy, upmarket suburb of Weybridge Park, said Dlele was on a crusade to defame her because she had been dismissed.

Dlele said she had been dismissed by Ferreira after querying the use of her name in the tender presentation.

The dismissal has the two locked in a Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration dispute for unfair labour practices.

Nestlé SA spokesman Ravi Pillay said last week that the company had invited qualified and experienced service providers to submit tenders for debt collection services in 2012.

"Collect A Debt was one of the companies that participated in the process."

Collect A Debt did not make the short list after an initial due diligence was conducted on all companies that submitted proposals for the provision of this service, Pillay said.