Grotesque treatment

CONTEXT: As a professional working in the construction industry and closely-related field such as property, my experience with the company has been nothing short of abysmal & dismaying. Our company was approached by an estate agent and subsequently appointed to detail as-built documentation for municipal approval, as the built structure/s were not legally built. It is quite common for banks to only finance houses which are fully approved by the local authority/municipality. After preliminary discussions with the home owners and the estate agent, formal & signed agreements were made with the owners of these structures for the work. As many professionals and clients have experienced, local authorities are under-staffed and cannot consider approvals in a fair period of time, a technicality which was specifically highlighted during preliminary discussions. This was made worse during a pandemic. The documentation was then compiled and sent for consideration at the local authority concerned. The estate agent, Nonkululeko Khasali, who had trouble dealing with the pressure & impatience from the home owners who are selling their houses through her/estate agency, decided to scapegoat the professionals who were involved in compiling the technical documentation for local authority approval. As a result of her unwarranted fury, she verbally abused the professionals through a voice note, and labelled them with extremely ‘’colourful’’ terms, which can be heard by clicking this link: Warning: The content is explicit and discretion is advised.

Link 1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15nxC0D1fA_s0_oEI-KDNtiH-L7Sxl3tf/view?usp=sharing

Link 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VfSfZTvCwiTD-OdTRwHpeNITrzoZWdci/view?usp=sharing

Due to the estate agent’s inability to deal with the pressure from the sellers, she scapegoated our company and its professionals and suggested we did not know what our tasks were, which greatly affected the reputation of our service and future work. It seems her scope of work is that of some deity and she has supernatural powers of telling clients who/who not to converse with. The purpose of me linking these is to firstly, and out-rightly, produce undeniable evidence of my claims and demonstrate the abuse that young black professionals have to endure on a daily basis in corporate South Africa.

THE MANAGEMENT: The incident was reported to the management through a well-documented dossier. They responded and said they would “look into it” and respond. Yes, you guessed right; they did not respond. I had to follow up and enquire about the progress of a ‘’way forward’’ after the complaint. Were they perhaps trying to conceal the issue and thought I would keep quiet, especially after blatant and such grotesque treatment?

THEIR ATTORNEY: After I had decided to make a public review, similar to this one, I received a call from the estate agency’s attorney, as I had expected. The attorney and I agreed that I remove the review as they were working on the issue, or risk facing legal action for defamation. Does publicly broadcasting factual matter amount to defamation? I was told by one of the managers that the estate agent had been ‘’disciplined’’, however, there was very little evidence provided for this.

THE UNPAID BALANCE: Above all the abuse, the client’s account was apparently managed by the aforementioned estate agent and therefore paid for the work. All prompts to try to get the balance after completion of our services have not been successful. That looks like a loss on our side. Texts and messages are being deliberately ignored, as expected. Why would they lift a finger to try and address complaints of a black professional? As a service provider, avoid working with Nonkululeko Khasali. She will curse you in the presence of your colleagues. Goodluck.