The Eastern Cape education department has bungled the payment of stipends to thousands of education and general assistants by underpaying 1,892 schools.
A total of 5,212 workers at 567 schools were not paid their stipends for January, according to a report compiled by the portfolio committee on basic education, which visited schools in Matatiele and Mount Fletcher in the Eastern Cape.
The payments fiasco comes in the wake of a call by the DA’s shadow MEC of education in the Eastern Cape, Yusuf Cassim, for the department to be placed under administration because of its “financial and administrative incompetence”. Cassim made the call during the state of the province address on February 17.
The plan to employ education and general assistants across SA is part of the second phase of the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative, which aimed to provide jobs to 287,000 unemployed people aged 18-35.
The programme started in November and is scheduled to finish at the end of the month.
During the first phase of the project, which started in December 2020, more than 320,000 education and general assistants were placed in schools countrywide at a cost of R4.47bn.
The duties of education assistants included handing out workbooks, textbooks and worksheets to pupils, helping the teacher photocopy question papers and managing pupil behaviour.
The report stated that “discrepancies” were discovered while making transfers to schools in December 2021 for the payment of stipends.
These discrepancies included the nonpayment of participating schools and special schools and the overpayment and underpayment of schools, as well as payment to those that were not part of the initiative.
“Reconciliations were performed and findings indicated that incorrect allocation of education and general assistants per school and incorrect banking details were used to effect payments,” the report reads.
A total of 39,921 workers were employed at 5,011 schools across the Eastern Cape. Only 1,294 — or 26% — of schools were correctly paid, while 1,825 were overpaid and 1,892 underpaid.
Schools that were overpaid by the department have been asked to return the overpayments.
The report stated that schools were urged to pay education and general assistants who “rendered service as some may have left to pursue educational dreams or were appointed elsewhere”.
“The department working together with the provincial treasury is finding a solution to improve processes of paying education and general assistants directly to their bank account,” it reads.
Cassim said the late payment of stipends was “a symptom of a greater problem within the department which is financial and administrative incompetence”.
He said the department’s budget as of last month was overdrawn by R1.4bn and that it required an additional R5.7bn to meet its obligations for the current financial year which ends at the end of the month.
“It has overspent its budget for the current financial year,” said Cassim.
The SA Democratic Teachers’ Union’s branch in Eastern Cape said in a statement that the nonpayment of the workers “hinges on violation of fair labour practices”.
“They have discharged their responsibilities efficiently and have served the employer who seems not to appreciate the excellent work done,” Sadtu said.
Loyiso Mbinda, provincial CEO for National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA in the Eastern Cape, said the education and general assistants were not paid the stipends that were due for payment on February 25.
“We have been interacting with the department and they made empty promises,” he said.
Mbinda said frustrated workers at some schools have even resorted to protest action to force the department to pay them.
“Some of these workers are the only beacon of hope in their homes. They have been unemployed for years and when they get temporary employment, they are being failed by the government.”
Eastern Cape education department spokesperson Mali Mtima said technical glitches resulted in the delay of the payment of the November and December stipends.
He said monies had been transferred to schools and would be available from March 15 to pay outstanding January stipends.
Meanwhile, according to the parliamentary committee’s report, 21,727 pupils who were being provided with scholar transport will from next month no longer have this benefit because of budgetary constraints in the province’s department of transport.
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