DA KZN: Committee of Enquiry is crunch time for Education MEC

20 November 2014

The DA welcomes the announcement by KZN Education MEC, Peggy Nkonyeni, of a Committee of Enquiry into irregular expenditure within the department.

The enquiry comes after it was revealed that the department will over spend on its budget by an estimated R700million - mostly on salaries and operational costs - despite having the largest budget in the entire province.

The department's financial crisis is not new. The DA has been calling for a turnaround strategy for some time. 

Education in our province has never been in such a catastrophic state and the results speak for themselves. Both the SCOPA hearing and Treasury Mid-term review clearly showed that it is in dire straits with a R500 million overspend on employees' salaries - R300 million of which is to be diverted from infrastructure - and an estimated R200 million overspend on operational costs.

The DA is alarmed by this shifting of funds from infrastructure to salaries, which has led to all infrastructure projects being put on hold indefinitely. This means that the backlog of projects due for completion by 2016, in terms of the norms and standards, will not be met.

Earlier this year the DA revealed that KZN has some 3419 schools without toilets and 518 without electricity and hundreds. These are just some of the critical infrastructure projects that will be shelved.

Employee salaries form the bulk of over expenditure costs. This in the face of so-called ghost teachers, a leave policy so badly implemented it allows hundreds of teachers to be paid out despite not being in schools teaching. And then there are the unfilled critical posts that remain essential to the success of our province's education outcomes.

There have also been many protests by NSNP service providers who have not been paid by the department - some for as long as 18 months. This inability to pay service providers has resulted in many learners going hungry while small businesses have become bankrupt. 

The Committee of Enquiry is crunch time for the MEC. The DA expects her to ensure that it is results-driven. Most importantly, we expect her to turn this critically important department around.

Statement issued by Mbali Ntuli MPL, DA spokesperson on education in the KZN legislature, November 20 2014

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