A leadership crisis leaves Eastern Cape teachers in limbo,
writes Julia Grey
The South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) went on a day-long strike last month to demand that the ”corruption, maladministration and inefficiency” of the Eastern Cape Provincial Education Department (Ecped) be investigated.
Key demands from the provincial Sadtu organisation – which boasts a membership of 53 000 out of a total of about 68 000 teachers in the Eastern Cape -include:
the immediate payment of all monies owed to educators;
the immediate finalisation of the redeployment process; and
that the former super-intendent general, Modi dima Mannya, be allowed to ”repond to all accusations levelled against him”.
Mannya, who had a reputation in Ecped as a ”corruption-buster” and was credited with improving service delivery, resigned under controversial circumstances last month. He was accused of unspecified ”financial mismanagements” and ”offences” by MEC for Education Stone Sizani.
Ecped representative Phamphama Mfenyana admits that the nonpayment of educators has been ”a nightmare”. Mfenyana ascribes the extraordinary backlog in payments – which has affected thousands of educators – to administrative problems, including a dinosaur of a computer system. Apparently inherited from the apartheid era, Mfenyana says it involves ”four separate computer systems which are unable to talk to each other”.
He adds, ”Experts in systems development are currently engaged in finding the best way forward”, but is unable to say when improvements will be implemented.
But there are other issues of nonpayment involved as well, and these are being blamed on national government departments. They are payments agreed to nationally through the Public Service Wage Settlement of 2000/2001, which obliges the state to pay public service employees amounts including a R850 once-off bonus, and a 13th cheque equal to one month’s salary.
Mfenyana argues that ”We don’t have money for this in our own budget” and that, ”It’s not fair that Sadtu is striking against the provincial administration when these are national agreements.”
Mfenyana also says the lack of delivery on other levels – such as school needs like furniture, stationery and additional educators – is a consequence of ”centralisation”. The Ecped was one of several departments identified as having a history of overexpenditure. In order to try to monitor and contain this, the National Treasury insisted that all payments be centralised.
One consequence is that it has ”crippled the ability of education district officers to provide for school needs,” admits Mfenyana.
But Sadtu provincial secretary Mxolisi Dimaza responds: ”What caused the centralisation in the first place? It was because of a lack of capacity. It is unfortunate that instead of the Eastern Cape facing up to reality, they come up with all these excuses and blame whoever they can.”
Criticism from politicians, including Deputy President Jacob Zuma, for Sadtu disrupting education by its strike action, received a scathing response from Sadtu: ”We do not go on strike because it is fashionable to do so, but we embark on such legal action because all other forms of intervention have failed to deliver positive, progressive and transformative outcomes.”
Dimaza contends that ”nonpayment of educators has already disrupted the culture of teaching and learning.”
Dave Balt from the National Professional Teacher’s Organisation of South Africa adds his voice of ”enormous concern” about the province’s administration, describing it as ”tragic, to say the least”.
Mfenyana concedes that corruption has had a further negative impact on the Ecped’s capacity to deliver: ”If we spent less time running around trying to stop people from doing fraudulent things, we could have spent more time paying people.”
Meantime, Dimaza says he is ”surprised” that the national Department of Education has not yet intervened in the ” real crisis” in the province.
— The Teacher/Mail & Guardian, April 2001.