Andy Duffy
Five of the Free State’s top education officials have been suspended, badly hampering the province’s management of state schooling.
The province, which last week fired education MEC Mxolisi Dukwana, has already seen a stream of old-guard senior officials quit over the past year, including four directors and deputy directors who went in December. About a quarter of the department’s administrative posts across the province are now vacant.
The five suspended officials – including department chief Ben Khoali, examination- division head Frank Rumboll, and auxiliary and logistics director LL Lebakong – stand accused of gross negligence over botched textbook and stationery orders thought to have cost the province close to R50-million.
They cannot be permanently replaced until the outcome of their disciplinary hearings, leaving the remaining department management with their workload. However, senior officials in the department are still unsure – a week later – why Dukwana was axed.
Khoali’s stand-in, school management chief director Luki Nkonka, says management understaffing is the main problem facing the department, after underfunding.
He adds that Free State Premier Ivy Matsepe- Cassaburi has not told department officials why she sacked Dukwana. The apparent reasons are a lack of leadership skills and the department’s failure to deliver.
Dukwana may also be taking the fall for the province’s poor matric pass rate, which fell to 42,3% last year from 51% in 1996. But Dukwana’s departure has surprised some officials – particularly as he ordered the investigation which uncovered the extent of the tendering foul-up and led to the officials’ suspension.
The problems were first signalled early last year with the provincial audit undertaken by the public service and administration department. It found that the tendering process was wide open to abuse and manipulation.
The main school stationery contract was awarded to one manufacturer, who was to supply goods to a wholesaler, who in turn would supply the goods to more than 30 small businesses for distribution to the province’s schools.
The department paid the small businesses up- front for the goods, but none of the money reached the wholesaler or manufacturer. They then successfully sued the department, forcing it to pay twice for the same goods.
Such problems, however, did not deter the province from adopting the same three-tiered tendering approach for textbooks. The department is still trying to wriggle out of paying a printing company R21-million.
Khoali and Rumboll were suspended in December, the three others in recent weeks. Nkonka says no other officials have been disciplined over the issue, and there is no evidence to suggest any department official is linked to the suppliers. A representative adds that the five suspended officials have “pleaded ignorance. They say they weren’t informed.”
Pressure on the province’s education management is likely to intensify over the next few months as cash constraints bite further. The department is on course to spend an estimated R330-million more than its R1,14-billion budget for the year to the end of March – mostly on staff costs. One option is for the province to fund this from next year’s budget (which has still to be finalised).
Nkonka adds that the province’s department of finance and economic affairs has undertaken to ensure salaries are paid through to the end of the financial year.
The department’s human resources director, Tebogo Lioma, says there has also been little teacher training for the past three years, and that dozens of capital expenditure programmes have been scrapped because of lack of funds.
Lioma says the education budget for 1998/99 will determine whether permanent teachers should be retrenched – a step that he says would be out of line with the province’s teaching needs.