In an escalation of a three-year reputation-sapping dispute, the former chair of Dimension Data (Didata) is suing one of SA’s technology pioneers for as much as R271m, alleging racial discrimination and violation of an equal pay undertaking.
Andile Ngcaba, who served as director-general of the department of communications under Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, first took on Didata in 2017, hauling the company to a labour dispute resolution body after he learnt he was excluded from an incentive scheme that benefited other staff.
But the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) dismissed the case, prompting Ngcaba to launch the lawsuit at the high court in Johannesburg.
Details about Ngcaba’s case were disclosed in court papers obtained by Business Day on Thursday in which he accused Didata, its chair and former CEO Jeremy Ord and Didata’s Japanese parent company, NTT, of backing out of an undertaking to pay him equally or higher than other senior executives between 2004 and 2016.
“During that period, [Didata] had been paying remuneration to the senior executives, who are mainly white persons, in a manner which was different to and higher than that of [Ngcaba]," the court papers showed.
Didata denied any wrongdoing. “We reject the allegations in the strongest possible terms,” it said in a statement. “We are disappointed that we now find ourselves in a contractual dispute with Mr Ngcaba. It is perplexing to us why he would allege racism against an organisation he was part of and led.”
The case threatens to tarnish the image of Didata, which has grown into a stable business selling everything from networking equipment to IT security after surviving the dot.com bubble two decades ago and attracting a $3.2bn (R50bn in today’s money) takeover offer from Japan’s NTT in 2010.
The case is expected to be heard on November 10.
“We expect justice, fairness and to expose racial discrimination in corporate SA which may affect many others,” Ngcaba told Business Day.
Ngcaba is claiming R261.3m unpaid bonuses under a scheme that links compensation on reaching specific goals, and another that is tied to the company’s share price plus a one-off bonus relating to the purchase of a BEE equity stake in Didata by a company he controlled, Convergence Partners Investments.
Alternatively, he is asking the court to compel Didata to pay him just over R170m in damages for “wrongfully and intentionally” discriminating against him on the “grounds of race, social origin and/or other arbitrary ground” by paying him less than other senior executives.
Ngcaba is demanding R10m for what he felt were racially discriminatory slurs and insults when Ord, who was CEO at the time, allegedly told him he is in line to make “extraordinary amounts of money out of his BEE shares” and should not expect any more from the company. “Such utterances and/ articulations were received by [Ngcaba] as constituting racially discriminatory slurs and insults specially and unfairly reserved for black business persons such as himself,” the papers showed.
Ngcaba joined Didata in April 2004 as executive chair of the group’s Africa and Middle East businesses after his company, Convergence Partners, led a consortium that bought a 25% stake in the business.
He stepped down from his position in July 2017 after Convergence Partners sold its shares back to the group.
With Tiisetso Motsoeneng
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