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A teacher in Durban who claims he was illegally fired twice for failing to keep up bribe payments to a top provincial official of teachers’ union Sadtu is suing the KwaZulu-Natal department of education for R10 million in damages.
Nkonzowenhle Mqadi (48), who made headlines last year after revealing how he paid Sadtu provincial executive committee member Thembekile Makhanya R12 000 in R1 000 monthly instalments for a teaching post at Sophie Phewa Primary School in Folweni, Durban, has approached the Education Labour Relations Council for a condonation hearing to allow him to pursue his damages claim.
Mqadi told City Press that the bribe was collected by one of Makhanya’s Grade 2 pupils every payday.
In an affidavit attached to his application, Mqadi, who was reinstated by the department last month but has still not been paid five months after his last allegedly illegal termination of service, said he had delayed approaching the council because “I was dealing with a cabal of corrupt education managers who were busy protecting and covering for each other”.
“It was only after the publication of the dirty tricks at Umlazi District [education offices] by City Press, subsequent appearance before the Volmink Commission and a meeting with the SA Council for Educators that I was advised to approach the Education Labour Relations Council for remedy on January 20 2016,” he said.
Last month, provincial education department spokesperson Sicelo Khuzwayo said that Mqadi, who is now on sick leave, had been reinstated and attached to the Enkanyisweni Primary School in the Umbumbulu circuit, and that his salary issues would be resolved. Khuzwayo did not respond to requests for comment.
On Wednesday, Mqadi’s lawyer issued a letter of demand to the department for the outstanding salary, giving it seven days to pay or face action in the KwaZulu-Natal High Court.
