Up to 70 KwaZulu-Natal teachers faced arrest on Monday as part of an education department and police clampdown on fraud and theft.
The province’s education MEC, Ina Cronje, said the arrests, by the police’s commercial branch, constituted a ”first batch”.
”The arrests follow an investigation by the KZN education department’s risk-management unit after the provincial internal audit [service] reported numerous cases of fraudulent qualification bonus awards two years ago,” Cronje said in a statement.
Officials believed a syndicate operating within the department devised a scam whereby bogus qualification bonuses were fraudulently paid into some teachers’ bank accounts.
The teachers received the bonuses without having obtained additional qualifications and were therefore not entitled to the bonuses.
”It is further alleged that after the fraudulent deposits were made into the teachers’ bank accounts, the teachers were contacted by operatives within the department and told to pay a portion of the ‘qualification bonuses’ over to officials involved with the syndicate.”
Cronje said it was believed that the teachers — at that time all employed in the Ethekwini region — received fraudulent payments of about R6-million.
”The list includes principals and heads of departments. For example, a teacher at one of our high schools allegedly only has a Senior Teacher Diploma, obtained in 1989. However, he received three fraudulent qualification bonuses during 2000 and 2001,” Cronje said.
”We therefore invite anybody with information that can assist us as government in ensuring clean government in KwaZulu-Natal to come forward. I will treat all information as confidential, and will not divulge names of informants without their express permission.”
Regarding possible internal disciplinary action, Cronje said her department would ensure that hearings were conducted in a substantively and procedurally fair manner, as required by law.
”There is no reason in law why such hearings cannot run concurrently with the criminal proceedings. At the same time, in terms of our law all accused persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty. We will also have discussions with teacher unions so that we can inform them personally of developments.” – Sapa