SADTU march bears fruit for temps
Following a peaceful march by members of the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu), 300 temporary teachers will receive payment for their services after going unpaid since April.
POLOKWANE – Sadtu, the Department of Education, and the Department of Treasury recently had a meeting regarding the issues of 300 temporary teachers not receiving payment, including housing allowances and other benefits, since April.
Spokesperson for Treasury, Sydwell Sibanda, said that the meeting was arranged after 120 Sadtu members embarked on a peaceful march on behalf of the teachers on 7 August in front of the Department of Education and the Department of Treasury buildings in the city.
On the day of the march, Sadtu Provincial Secretary, Raphasha Matome, said if the problem was not resolved within five days they would embark on another march on 14 September.
Subsequently, if the matter remained unresolved, a total shutdown of educational services would ensue.
Matome referred to rules in the Treasury Instruction Note 7 that wasn’t properly followed in order to prevent the situation where the teachers weren’t paid.
Treasury Instruction Note 7 states that: “The accounting officer of an institution must ensure that costs related compensation of employees, as well as promotion and salary increases, can be met within the budgetary allocation of the institution”.
It further states: “The Provincial Treasury has developed a Provincial Personnel Management Framework to address and mitigate the identified risks related to personnel management and the escalating costs of compensation of employees”.
Matome on Monday said they came to the conclusion during the meeting that all unpaid temporary teachers will receive payment yesterday (Wednesday) and there will for the time being not be another march.
He said the agreement was implemented as several of the affected teachers already received outstanding payments.
He added that all other outstanding payments, such as housing allowances and other benefits, will be paid to the teachers by the end of the month as per the agreed terms.
Department of Education Spokesperson, Naledzani Rasila, said “The department is glad that an agreement could be reached and that 85% of the teachers had received their payment by last week. We will not allow this to happen again. We have identified the issues which led to the problem and will be taking preventative measures to ensure we will never have a repeat of the events”.
