Originally Posted by
Hermes14
Pakt -
Vanash -
Vanash the South African law defines theft as the unlawful and intentional removal of movable property.
If the manager had not given her permission to eat from his personal cupboard & the matter went to court The cleaner would have been found guilty.
The problem over here is the manager gave his consent for her to remove (eat) from his cupboard & therefore would be thrown out of court.
If the matter goes to the CCMA her union representative will argue the same point.
Let's say the client's manager does want to press charges.
The commissioner of Oath that is taking the statement on behalf of the manager is supposed to state at the bottom of the statement “I have not given …. (the accused) permission to take anything from my cupboard”.
The client's manager would not be able to sign the statement because he would be making a false statement under Oath.
A few years ago I was the security manager at a large corporate company where one manager complained that milk was being stolen from their fridge.
During my investigation I found that another junior manager had given the cleaner permission to take any milk that was left in the fridge on a Friday afternoon as it would be sour by the Monday morning.
I called both managers together & they sorted the problem out.
If I was Pakt I would contact the “client's”manager & inform him of the situation that he has put the cleaning company in.
I would suggest that the cleaner is removed from this site & replace with another cleaner who is unknown to this cleaner.
I would then rewrite the job description & in the job description state that anything removed from the client's premises without written consent will be considered as theft & result in immediate dismissal.
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