Teachers go to court over unpaid salaries

07 August 2013 - 02:53 By ADRIENNE CARLISLE
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A court application for the seizure of the assets of the Eastern Cape education department has been made by the Legal Resources Centre.

It wants the department's assets to be sold and the proceeds used to pay teachers.

It has asked that the assets used by education MEC Mandla Makupula and his head of department, Mthunywa Ngonzo, be attached.

As Makupula and Ngonzo yesterday faced this new crisis, the department's woes worsened with another 13 teachers launching urgent applications for court orders against it.

Sarah Sephton, the centre's Grahamstown director, confirmed that 18 teachers had resorted to issuing a writ of execution, and 13 others were going to court to get their salaries.

In June, the centre won a court order that the department pay the outstanding salaries of about 108 teachers. The department paid many of them but 18 have yet to get their pay. They are owed about R619000, Sephton said.

The writ directs the sheriff to attach the department's assets, including those used by Makupula and Ngonzo. It also directs the sheriff to sell off the goods by public auction to raise the R619000 owed.

The latest court application, which will be heard next week, involves 13 teachers desperate to have their salaries paid.

But, given the department's failure to heed such directives in the past, they expect that they, too, will have to resort to seizing and selling the department's assets.

They are asking the high court to declare their salaries "quantifiable debts against the state" so that all unpaid teachers can hold the department accountable.

Sephton said the 13 were among about 800 teachers in the province who had not been paid.

"The teachers received letters of appointment, assumed duty and taught [but] have not been remunerated. This application is the latest in a long line of attempts to force the department to resolve the pervasive problem of non-payment of teachers."

Ngonzo has this year twice apologised to the high court for his department's failure to heed its orders and pay teachers.

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