SADTU MEDIA STATEMENT ON POSTS-FOR-CASH SCAM

SADTU says the Posts-for-Cash Scam is a deliberate attempt to mislead the public in the run-up to the elections.

The National Working Committee of SADTU met on urgent basis this morning to reflect on the attack directed at the union by those serving the interest of the white monopoly capital. SADTU members are professionals and will not be blinded by the City Press headlines. The headlines are aimed at tarnishing the good name of our Union, SADTU (see here).

The leadership characterised it as a deliberate attempt to mislead the public at this crucial time in our country as we escalate the campaign to ensure that the ANC gets more than two-third majority victory to deepen democracy in our country. In this the leadership wish to reiterates that the locus of our political programme is still the abolishment of class, race and patriarchal relations of power as interrelated antagonistic social contradiction. This abolishment is further informed by our resolve to underwrite any policy that strives to realize:

• a united state based on the will of all the people, without regard race, sex, belief, language, ethnicity or geographic location;
• a dignified and improving quality of life among all the people by providing equal rights and opportunities to all citizens;
• the restoration of the birthright of all South Africans regarding access to land and other resources;
• a society based on the best in human civilisation in terms of political and human freedoms, socio- economic rights, value systems and identity.

Our leadership further wishes to reiterate that the mechanisms by which this society is attained must be state-sponsored and should occur within the confines of a NDR-built developmental state shaped by the history and socio-economic dynamics of the South African society. The only political that has the capacity and the track record to run a state that will guarantee our continued existence with less socio-political suffocating tendencies is the African National Congress.

We therefore call upon our members to employ their tools of analysis and help our people to expose the political agenda of those who are behind this attack to our union. SADTU has nothing to sell because SADTU does not have posts and it is not the employer. You cannot sell what you don't have.

We further reiterate our call that those who have information about the posts for cash to approach the department of education so that we can once and for all root out corruption in the education system. The leadership has further approached the South African Council for Educators (SACE) as the custodian of the teaching profession and the Education Labour Relations Council which is responsible for conditions of employment and the promotion of labour peace to conduct investigations on the allegations jointly or independently to establish facts about the selling of posts scam. We do this because the teaching profession is a noble profession that cannot afford to be associated with corruption worse the exploitation of the teachers who are looking for a job.

The leadership has further made a call to the North West Department of Education to release the entire Nexus report so that the necessary action can be taken against those involved in the selling of posts.

Our Union will not be distracted or defocused by politically motivated headlines from the locus of our political programme.

SADTU is committed to a corrupt-free department of education and will cooperate with the department of education and the two institutions in rooting out corrupt activities.

Statement issued by SADTU, April 30 2014

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