Mukoni T Ratshitanga
Northern Province Department of Education staffers welcomed the suspension last week of their Director General, Zachari Chuenyane. Staffers say Chuenyane, suspended by MEC for Education Joe Phaahla, was “incompetent, inefficient and severely lacking in management skills”.
Cracks in Chuenyane’s hold on one of the province’s most senior posts began to show four weeks ago after millions of rands’ worth of stolen textbooks belonging to the department were discovered in a warehouse outside Pietersburg.
“The management and administration of the department … is at the moment characterised by inefficiency and lack of sufficient controls required to safeguard the interests of the government and the public,” education department representative Bernard Matsane said.
Matsane added that Chuenyane will soon appear before a disciplinary hearing to answer charges levelled against him.
Although Matsane could not reveal what the charges are, the Mail & Guardian has learnt he will be quizzed on mismanagement and his alleged failure to develop procurement systems.
Critics say Chuenyane tended to rely on consultants and failed to develop capacity in the department. “I suspect that he and his colleagues hid their inefficiencies behind the consultants,” said a staff member.
“There is no machinery in place to make things happen. You have a management that is unable to put forward plans and projections – questions like where they would want to see the department in five, 10 or 15 years’ time.”
The discovery of the books added to Chuenyane’s woes, giving rise to a flurry of criticisms.
“When you hear of books being discovered in warehouses and you know there is no procurement system, then you can’t help but ask: how many more warehouses are there?” stated an education department staff member.
Of the 1 211 people recently found to be recipients of ghost salaries, provincial authorities say more than half of them were Department of Education employees.
Some 942 schools were found to have principals employed on a temporary basis, creating a sense of insecurity.
Another criticism levelled against Chuenyane is that his managers are unable to interpret the department’s strategic plan drawn up three years ago by Aurora and Associates, a United States consultancy that delivers USaid education projects in Africa.
The inefficiency of the department’s switchboard system in Pietersburg has also come to haunt Chuenyane. According to staffers, while other government departments employ a system supplied by Telkom, the education department uses a Siemens system that, they charge, takes between 10 and 20 minutes to signal an incoming call to a receptionist.
Staffers this week claimed the system often breaks down and technicians have to be called from Johannesburg.
“Why we continue to use this system I really can’t tell you,” said a staff member, who added that: “The tender for this contract was very fishy and I would be happy if we were told who was involved and how much was involved.”
Some staff members who spoke to the M&G said former MEC for education, Aaron Motsoaledi, should share the blame for the crisis.
“He appointed practically every single one of the ex-bantustan bureaucrats to senior positions,” said one critic.
“Those people have no history in education transformation and the capacity to drive that transformation. All they know is how to receive orders.” He also fingered the provincial Cabinet and the legislature’s standing committee e on education for not intervening to block the appointment of ex- bantustan bureaucrats when it was suspected they were incompetent.
Some young and capable staffers at middle- management level have left the department for other provinces like Gauteng, claiming they felt marginalised.
The M&G knows of four who have landed senior management posts in Gauteng – in the provincial education and land affairs departments, and in consultancies.
Staffers allege Motsoaledi ran the department as if he was superintendent general. “There was a time when there was a great trek of regional managers because Motsoaledi kept on summoning them to Pietersburg almost every day to give them orders. You employ people who are incapacitated and then you incapacitate them more because they have to stop working and travel.”
The staff member also blamed Motsoaledi for the department’s lack of understanding of strategic plans. He says Motsoaledi blocked a move by management to draw up a needs assessment list before Aurora and Associates moved in to devise the plan, saying it would take time.
“He said Aurora and Associates would do everything because they were experts. I was present at that meeting and the poor managers simply bought his word.”
Motsoaledi this week refuted the claims, saying: “I never made any appointments, I never sat in any single interview. Appointments were done by the provincial Cabinet.”
At the time of going to press, Chuenyane had not responded to requests for comment.