- Suspension does not automatically terminate an acting appointment.
- CCMA award stands, GGB must pay Lucky Lukhwareni’s R25 000 acting allowance for the disputed period.
- Court rebukes the Board for a meritless review and orders it to pay costs.
When Lucky Lukhwareni accepted appointment as Acting Chief Operations Officer at the Gauteng Gambling Board (GGB) on 3 June 2021, he stepped into a leadership gap during a turbulent period under administration. The letter said the acting role would run “until terminated by yourself or the GGB”.
With that responsibility came a R25 000 monthly acting allowance and the expectation that if the board wanted to end it, it would do so in writing, as required by its own Acting Allowance Policy. For nearly two years, Lukhwareni helped steady operations while the organisation had no CEO, and then transitioned to a new board in January 2022, still without any letter ending his acting role.
Suspension, silence, and a sudden cut to income
Everything changed on 30 January 2023, when the board placed Lukhwareni on precautionary suspension with full pay and benefits from his substantive post as senior legal manager. A month later, on 25 February 2023, the GGB stopped paying the acting allowance. There was no written termination of the acting appointment, only the allowance vanished. For Lukhwareni, it wasn’t just money, it was dignity and due process. He had accepted extra duties at the Board’s request and expected the Board to follow its own rules when it wanted to change course.
Lukhwareni turned to the CCMA, which found the GGB had committed an unfair labour practice (benefits) by halting payment while he remained appointed as ACOO on paper. The commissioner ordered the board to pay the allowance from 25 February to 25 July 2023, the period until just before the Board finally acted. Only on 16 August 2023 did the GGB formally terminate the acting appointment in writing, as its policy requires.
The Labour Court backs the award
Unhappy with the outcome, the GGB launched a review in the Labour Court of South Africa, Johannesburg, arguing among other things that, only a CEO could appoint an acting COO, the acting stint couldn’t lawfully exceed six months, and that suspension meant he was “absent from duty”, so the allowance could stop.
In a judgment delivered on 18 August 2025, Judge Reynaud Daniels dismissed the review. Applying the reasonableness test for CCMA awards, he held the commissioner’s decision fell well within bounds, the board’s enabling legislation (including sections 12(1)(b), 12(3), 15A and 18C of the Gauteng Gambling Act 4 of 1995) permits the board (or an administrator) to appoint staff and delegate functions, nothing in law limited appointment authority to a CEO alone. Crucially, the board’s own Acting Policy requires written appointment and written termination. That never happened until 16 August 2023.
Unlawful appointment? The law says not until a court sets it aside
The GGB tried to characterise the acting appointment as unlawful. The court reminded the Board of a foundational public-law principle, often called Oudekraal, an administrative act stands and has legal effect until a court sets it aside. Employers, especially public bodies, cannot ignore their own acts or strip benefits on the assumption of invalidity. If the GGB thought the appointment was unlawful, it had to challenge and set it aside. It didn’t. The appointment therefore stood, and so did the benefits attached to it.
The court rejected the notion that suspension automatically ended the acting role or rendered Lukhwareni “absent from duty” under clause 7.6.2. Read in its language, context and purpose, that clause deals with voluntary absence and doesn’t convert a precautionary suspension, imposed by the employer, into a free pass to stop paying an existing acting allowance. The board had a simple, lawful route, terminate in writing. It simply didn’t, for months.
Wasteful expenditure, a problem of the Board’s own making
The GGB argued it would amount to wasteful expenditure to pay an acting allowance during suspension, possibly while another person acted in the same role. The court was unsympathetic; any duplication flowed from the board’s failure to follow its own policy and the law. Had it issued the required termination letter when it suspended Lukhwareni, it wouldn’t be paying twice.
Costs don’t usually follow the result in labour matters, but Judge Daniels found the application “so lacking in merit” that fairness required a costs order. The court emphasised that its limited time and resources shouldn’t be consumed by frivolous reviews, and that the employee had been forced to defend a valid award through unnecessary litigation. The outcome, review dismissed with costs.
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