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Mugwena Maluleke, general secretary of teachers’ union Sadtu, has always known the identity of union leaders who tried to force a district director to give them jobs and tenders.
This is despite him denying knowledge of their names during an interview on Metro FM on Monday.
In the interview, Maluleke said he received a letter of complaint from Thembelihle Vilakazi, the director of the Ilembe district in KwaZulu-Natal, in which several “general accusations” had been made about the selling of posts by Sadtu members, but no names had been provided.
Maluleke added that he had followed up with her on the letter and had asked her to provide names, but she had failed to do so.
But confronted with the letter by City Press, Maluleke changed his story, admitting the names had been there, but Vilakazi had not accused the three Sadtu eThekwini North leaders of selling positions.
City Press had obtained a copy of the letter, dated May 4 2015, which Vilakazi emailed to Maluleke, copying in Sadtu provincial secretary Nomarashiya Caluza and provincial chairperson Phumlani Duma.
In it, she names the three men she alleges tried to force her to appoint all of them to positions of chief education specialist – a job that carries a salary of more than R600 000 a year. She also alleges they demanded that she award them tenders to supply food for the district’s school nutrition programme.
Last week, City Press revealed that Sadtu’s members were still selling top education jobs and principal positions – for cash, cows, sheep and goats.
In KwaZulu-Natal, more than 900 schools in the Ilembe and Ugu districts stopped functioning for the past two weeks after teachers belonging to Sadtu protested outside the district offices, demanding that the directors – Vilakazi and her Ugu counterpart, Mfundo Sibiya – resign or be fired.
Senior sources within the provincial education department told City Press the two had refused to accede to a number of Sadtu members’ demands to prioritise them for senior posts.
SADTU MEMBERS’ ‘DEMANDS’
In her letter, Vilakazi names Sadtu’s eThekwini North secretary, Simon Dlamini; former secretary Mthokozisi Mpunzana; and KwaDukuza branch secretary Mzwakhe Cele as the three who visited her in August last year demanding jobs and tenders.
All three have denied visiting Vilakazi or demanding jobs or tenders from her.
In the letter, Vilakazi alleges: “May I formally report I was once approached by [the] eThekwini North regional leadership of Sadtu ... They requested me, as a district director of Ilembe, to ensure that their companies are granted tenders in relation to [the national school nutrition programme].
“They requested I fix certain [chief education specialist] posts to the favour of Simon Dlamini, Mzwakhe Cele and Mthokozisi Mpunzana. When I refused to fix their requests, I made enemies.”
After she refused to toe the line, Vilakazi alleges, Sadtu members “disrupted my principals’ meetings, blocked my intervention programmes in schools, and chased away circuit managers who supported teaching and learning”.
“May I further report that, during the recent elections of Sadtu-eThekwini North region, some of the members implicated in the above-mentioned fixing of posts were elected to the regional leadership. In their maiden speech in front of some provincial leadership, they vowed that I would have been removed in two weeks’ time,” she wrote.
She also said Dlamini, Cele and Mpunzana demanded that she redo the short-listing process in her districts for office-based posts that had been advertised. After she demanded they put it in writing, they allegedly refused, but were “open to say they would never rest until I am out”.
Vilakazi asked Maluleke whether she could count on his support. She refused to comment on the letter which was leaked to City Press.
VILAKAZI’S ‘SMOKE SCREEN’
Contacted for comment this week, Mpunzana claimed that Vilakazi was “hallucinating”.
“You can’t ask for a position if you have not applied. She is not okay ‘upstairs’,” he said.
Cele also denied the allegations, saying he had never heard about the letter to Maluleke and denied its contents. “It’s all lies. I don’t even sleep at home. I am scared of her. She wants to kill me,” he said.
Dlamini denied the allegations and claimed Vilakazi was using them as a smoke screen because she was incompetent at her job.
“She doesn’t have an operational plan, strategic plan or turnaround strategy. I have been teaching for more than 10 years. Why would I request a position when I am a graduate and trust myself?”
Maluleke said Sadtu had launched an investigation into allegations by the Ilembe district.
“The issues are serious and have been raised since 2012. There is no willingness to resolve them by the district. Redeployment processes in Ilembe are wrongly done and cause untold suffering to teachers,” he said. He said the actions in Ilembe and Ugu districts were not about posts but labour relations.
He also said Sadtu’s national executive committee had launched an investigation into allegations against the three regional leaders accused of demanding positions and tenders.
Meanwhile, two sources – one close to Maluleke and another in the provincial education department – told City Press Maluleke planned to ask the provincial Sadtu leadership to either write to the Sadtu national executive committee to explain the members’ reportedly corrupt activities in the province or come and present the explanation in person.
STRIKERS LOSE IN COURT
This week, the KwaZulu-Natal department of education obtained an interdict from the high court in Durban preventing Sadtu members from going on strike at Ilembe. Department spokesperson Muzi Mahlambi said the situation in the districts was “back to normal” and the department would apply the “no work, no pay principle” to those who took part in the “illegal industrial action” and disciplinary action would be pursued.
‘DON’T BUY CITY PRESS’
On Tuesday, Caluza called a press conference at which the union went on the offensive, calling for a boycott of City Press, which they accused of conducting a campaign to destroy the union. She denied involvement in the “fixing” or selling of posts.
Flanked by regional Sadtu leaders and representatives of the Congress of SA Students, Caluza said her union had exposed corruption by “departmental officials”, but “seemingly, corruption in the department is shifted to Sadtu”.
“Sadtu is Sadtu. Sadtu is not the department … Sadtu is a union,” she said. “As a union, there has never been a decision to fix or sell a post.”
Caluza said Sadtu had been “raising serious issues” at Ilembe and Ugu since 2011 and 2012.
“The department must, therefore, not shift the goalposts and claim the action in the two districts is for posts. The action is a result of the failure of the department to address issues, and workers at that level had no other option but to force engagements with the employer that was running away,” she said
