Kwa-Thema – One hundred and eight school patrollers remain in limbo over unpaid wages and unsigned contracts from the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE).

The cohort signed contracts with the GDE to serve as patrollers at Kwa-Thema schools from April to September.

The group’s representatives told the African Reporter that despite their contracts stating they would receive pay on the last day of each month, that had not happened. The publication will not name the individuals for fear of victimisation.

“There is not a single month when we got paid on time. Some months, it was delayed by more than two weeks,” said one of the patrollers.

The group said communication from the department has always been poor.

“There would be different emails with different information every other day. What we wanted was to be informed about what was going on and how it would be resolved. But we could never get clear answers,” said another patroller.

As of October 23, the group claimed they had still not been paid for September and had received conflicting messages about their work arrangements from October to March.

“Some of us chose not to report for duty at the beginning of October. We have no contracts; we do not know how to move forward with the department. We don’t know who should work and who should stay at home,” they said.

GDE spokesperson Steve Mabona explained that patrollers are deployed to public ordinary schools to assist with access control and guard against theft, vandalism and threats to infrastructure and safety.

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“The late submission of documents caused the payment delay. However, we always ensure we process outstanding payments.

“Due to financial constraints, only two of the four patrollers from the previous cohort (April to September) will be deployed alternately every second month from October 1 to March 31.

“The current cohort will be paid the same amount as the previous one,” he added.

This means that although all the patrollers will remain employed, they will not work every month. Each will work three out of the six remaining months.

Mabona did not confirm when the patrollers would receive their September remuneration and did not respond to a question about the new contracts.