'Mafia bosses education'

Education in Eastern Cape is allegedly controlled by a clique that uses blackmail and intimidation to keep its members' pockets full.

A two-month investigation by The Times's sister publication, The Herald, also revealed claims by female education department officials that they are pressurised at out-of-town junkets into having sex with "top dogs" in exchange for a promotion.

The clique - dubbed the Education Mafia - has infiltrated a number of the provincial department's 28 directorates, with some members holding key positions.

This allegedly enables them to manipulate tender procedures and financial plans, influence policy discussions and stymie internal investigations.

The group has also allegedly drawn up a ''hit list'' of education officials its members want fired for standing in their way .

The deputy director-general of the Eastern Cape education department, Sithembele Zibi, believes he is on that list.

"There is a powerful clique trying to do away with people standing in the way of them getting their hands on the department's hefty budget. They want to remove people who are blocking their access to the money.

"I am part of a targeted group on a hit list, to be removed from the department.

"My job is on the line, along with others in supply-chain management, because we are in control of huge amounts of money."

Zibi has been suspended repeatedly by the department -"all part of the plan to get rid of me because of my stance on corruption".

The clique also allegedly uses women, most of them interns, to seduce officials into pilfering state funds.

If an official is married, the affair is used to blackmail him.

Chief director for further education and training Khayalethu Ngaso, and chief director for supply-chain management Mthobeli Gaca, say they, too, are on the list.

Several highly placed officials told The Herald that four people control the clique, including two former high-ranking office-bearers who used their political clout to encourage supply-chain management officials to award tenders to favoured companies.

The other key players in the clique reportedly work in the department's finance division and on the legislature's education portfolio committee. Their names are known to The Herald.

"You don't mess with these guys. They are everywhere and have been doing it for years without ever being mentioned in the media or being caught out," said an insider.

Ngaso said he was approached in 2009 by the clique to sign off a R40-billion student residence project.

"They wanted me to sign it off with hardly any information or it going out to tender. They also did not want me communicating with the provincial treasury or the public works department."

Ngaso said he refused and was suspended a few months later, ostensibly because he failed to discipline his secretary for forgetting to itemise 50 diaries.

He was suspended for two years with full pay at a cost of R876000. The residence project eventually fell by the wayside, Ngaso said.

Gaca said he had been suspended for requesting a lifestyle audit on himself and colleagues. Charge sheets and internal documents back up his claim.

"Instead of the department authorising it, I was suspended for being too honest," he said.

Gaca said that when his suspension was lifted the department's supply-chain directorate was in chaos.

Another source said the ''Education Mafia'' had forced the national education intervention team, appointed by Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga, out of the province last year.

"They needed time to clean their tracks and ensure there was no evidence linking them to corruption," he said.

Repeated requests to the Department of Basic Education for comment were ignored.

National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union regional chairman Noluthando Masango said: "The politics of this province are dirty and very ugly."

He said investigations were carried out but then buried.

"I don't know who's sitting on this information because I find it hard to believe that the Special Investigating Unit has unearthed nothing."