29 October 2025
The Public Protector has received a complaint from a former CCMA senior commissioner about the promotion of an official previously found to have tampered with the case management system. Archive photo: Ashraf Hendricks
A former senior commissioner at the CCMA has asked the Public Protector to investigate why an official who tampered with statistics to make the East London office look good was later promoted to a senior case management post.
Caren-Lee Small, in her complaint to the Public Protector, says that the promotion of Nonzame Jaxa to a senior case management role in the CCMA’s headquarters in Johannesburg amounts to “maladministration, unethical practice, and a betrayal of the public trust in the CCMA”.
Jaxa was the registrar of the CCMA’s East London regional office when, in 2019, an internal investigation, seen by GroundUp, found that she had, together with other officials, tampered with the case management system (CMS) to conceal late decisions by commissioners, presumably to boost the office’s performance statistics. She was subsequently demoted and transferred to another office in the Eastern Cape.
But Jaxa has since been transferred to CCMA’s Johannesburg office, the biggest in the country, and appointed as Senior Case Manager, in which she oversees the same case management system. This involves managing case management officers, processing labour referrals, allocating them to commissioners, and capturing these on the digital CMS.
In response to questions from GroundUp, CCMA director Cameron Morajane said, “We decline to respond to certain questions due to POPIA (Protection of Personal Information Act.”
“This should not be construed as an admission of any wrongdoing on our part. We consider this to be an internal matter between the employer and employee and as such, we are not obligated to comment.”
“However, we state that the entire process relating to the case management and appointment of the employee in question was conducted in strict accordance with CCMA relevant policies and procedures,” he said.
Jaxa declined to comment as the CCMA’s management had already responded.
In 2018, Small was acting national commissioner of the CCMA when several commissioners raised concerns that the case management system was being manipulated. She decided to launch an investigation.
In a statement seen by GroundUp, East London commissioner Joanne Coetzee said she became concerned when a CMS notification showed a decision she delivered in April 2018 had not been processed on the system. A few weeks later, she received a CMS notification that her decision was still outstanding for that case.
“This was impossible, given the fact that I submitted my award timeously,” she said in her statement. It emerged that the case management officer had not recorded the decision on the system by the deadline. CCMA decisions must be sent to parties within 14 days of the hearing.
To rectify this, she was advised by the case management officer, at the behest of Jaxa, that the applicant in the case should be asked to lodge an objection and the case should be rescheduled so it can be heard by another commissioner. This would effectively extend the deadline for the decision, and the decision would not reflect as late on the system.
“I was surprised at this approach and explained that I have a concern with what they were doing. I also informed her [case management officer] that this was irregular,” said Coetzee in her statement. But the case was rescheduled anyway. The new commissioner delivered the same default judgment that Coetzee had previously delivered.
Another commissioner, Elizabeth Thom, also wrote a statement saying that she too had issued a decision a day after the hearing of a dismissed employee, but it was not recorded on the system on time. She was told by Jaxa to call the applicant and ask them to object to the decision so that the case can be heard again by another commission.
“Her exact words to me were: ‘help us to save the region, this is for us all’. I told her that I do not like that because I think it is against the CCMA values and I do not want anything that will affect my work. I have to do my work with honesty,” said Thom in her statement.
Small believes the manipulation of the system by Jaxa and other officials may have been intended to help the CCMA’s East London office qualify for recognition at the commission’s annual awards gala, where it had been named the “Most Improved Performing Region” the previous year.
Jaxa’s new position at the biggest CCMA office in the country “gives her full access to the very CMS that she committed fraud and gross dishonesty”, says Small in her complaint.
“I think what makes it even more alarming is that senior managers are aware of the misconduct and choose to turn a blind eye. How many other cases of wrongdoing have been overlooked, with perpetrators rewarded through promotions to senior positions?”
Jaxa’s new position at the biggest CCMA office in the country “gives her full access” to the CMS, which she manipulated, said Small.