Sama Gauteng leader disputes facts made by Samatu in liquidation battle
Samatu’s administrator, Gerhard Vosloo, filed a court application last week in which he wants Sama to wind up as it owes the union R370 million in membership fees alone.
by Theto MahlakoanaJOHANNESBURG - The South African Medical Association’s (Sama) Gauteng leader, Mark Human, on Monday disputed facts made in court judgments and by the SA Medical Association Trade Union (Samatu) administrator claiming that no doctors joined the trade union, but the association rather.
However, Human did agree that Sama and the trade union could not be merged, which was exactly what Sama had done which led to the union’s administration.
Human further stated that the association’s quest was to unite private and public doctors.
“The biggest single problem is that Sama is a non-profit company, but it also falls under the Labour Relations Act because of the trade union, and it’s absolutely impossible in law to marry those two things, and that’s what led to the dispute,” he said.
Samatu’s administrator, Gerhard Vosloo, filed a court application last week in which he wanted Sama to wind up as it owed the union R370 million in membership fees alone.
Vosloo said in papers seen by Eyewitness News that the association failed to pay that money despite several demands, and therefore it should be considered insolvent. Sama, meanwhile, argued that the monthly membership fees it received belonged to it as a professional body for doctors.
The Labour Registrar placed the union under administration in October last year following several contraventions of the Labour Relations Act. This led to a raging legal battle between Sama, a non-profit professional association, and the trade union administrator.
The union represents about 7,500 public sector doctors.
Vosloo was then appointed by the court to, among others, take control of the cash, investments, shares, and other securities and assets owned or administered by all on behalf of the trade union.