‘Jobs for Cash’: SADTU must face the music
21 May 2016
The DA welcomes the release of the ‘Jobs for Cash’ report on the SADTU bribery and corruption racket in our schools.
Minister Motshekga waited until the stroke of midnight to release the report. We are glad that the report has finally seen the light of day, even if it was released under the cover of darkness.
Minister Motshekga has finally stood up to the ANC-aligned SADTU. Now, she needs to go a step further to ensure that those officials and teachers implicated in all 38 cases of buying and selling of teaching posts face the full force of the law.
The report shows how SADTU has captured our education system in six out of nine provinces, and how SADTU has allowed militancy to trump professionalism in its ranks.
It is time for SADTU’s bosses to face the music. For too long, SADTU has been allowed to sabotage our school system to further its own political ends.
We hope that this report will be the catalyst to break SADTU’s stranglehold on schools in disadvantaged communities. It is no coincidence that education is deteriorating in provinces where SADTU dominates.
There are 16 recommendations in the report. These include:
Referring all cases of bribery and corruption to the SAPS, and that Minister Motshekga engages her counterpart in the police to ensure fair and expeditious resolution;
Prohibiting both school- and office-based educators from being office bearers of political parties;
Establishing separate and distinct unions for school- and office-based educators;
Putting in place measures to stop cadre deployment into Department of Basic Education offices and schools;
Removing the powers of School Governing Bodies to make recommendations for the appointment of post level 2 teachers and above.
We will be studying every recommendation in the report to determine our position on each one. We must fight SADTU’s toxic influence on our school system, but we must also ensure that any side effects of the proposed remedies do not weaken the public school system further.
Statement issued by Gavin Davis MP, DA Shadow Minister of Basic Education, 21 May 2016
