Labour minister places blame for payment delay on basic education department

Employment and labour minister Nomakhosazana Meth has called on the basic education department to submit supporting documents to process delayed payments of stipends for education assistants and general assistants for September.

These are verified monthly attendance registers of 158,000 assistants employed in 20,000 public schools and funded outside the Treasury allocations.

The basic education ministry, however, says the onus lies with the department of employment and labour.

Meth said the payment process was in accordance with a service level agreement (SLA) signed between the basic education department and the Industrial Development Corporation of SA (IDC). She said the programme was governed by a multiparty funding agreement, which required strict compliance before releasing the funds.

“In terms of contractual agreement between the basic education department, the department of employment and labour and the IDC, the SLA states the beneficiary [basic education department] must upload attendance registers on the fifteenth of every month for the payment to be processed by the employment and labour department,” Meth said.

Missed deadline led to payment delays

Of the R4bn the department contributes towards the initiative, it transferred more than R1bn in June as the first tranche to enable the project rollout. However, the basic education department did not submit supporting documents in time for September, which the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) requires to process payments.

“Releasing the funds without due process would undermine good governance, expose the UIF and the department to audit findings and irregular expenditure and compromise the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) principles that bind all government entities.

“The department’s commitment to the PFMA, Treasury regulations and the signed MFA is not red tape. It is a duty to South Africans to safeguard public resources, to ensure programmes are credible and to guarantee future public employment programmes retain the trust of the public and the beneficiaries.”

Payments to follow once documents received

Meth assured education and general assistants that payments would be processed once the department received attendance registers from the basic education department.

“While compliance must be upheld, I am conscious of the hardship experienced by thousands of young people awaiting their stipends. We urge the basic education department to accelerate the collection and submission of outstanding attendance registers for the UIF to process the second tranche without delay once compliance is met.”

However, basic education minister Siviwe Gwarube said her department had submitted all required documents.

“The basic education department has done everything to comply and submit all verification documents to ensure our education assistants are paid without further delay,” Gwarube said.

“Their work is invaluable in our schools. The payment of education assistants isn’t the responsibility of the basic education department. It is the work of the department of employment and labour.”

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