Eastern Cape Premier of the Eastern Cape, Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane has placed the Head of Department (HOD) for Education, Dr Naledi Mbude, on a precautionary suspension pending an investigation into critical matters impacting teaching and learning in the province.
According to a statement issued by the spokesperson to the Premier, Khuselwa Rantjie, the Premier informed Mbude on April 5, 2022, that the precautionary suspension with full pay is effective immediately.
“This is a precautionary suspension in terms of the Disciplinary Code and Procedures for members of the Senior Management Services (SMS) contained in chapter 7 of the SMS Handbook for the public service,” said Rantjie.
The suspension of Mbude follows a number of issues emanating from the work of the department including, the delays in the delivery of stationery to schools, delays in processing of payments for educator assistants over the 2021 festive season and the under expenditure of infrastructure conditional grant leading to the return of R205 million to treasury.
“The pre-cautionary suspension of the HOD creates space for government to investigate these matters. Mabuyane had set up a team led by a Deputy Director General in the office of the Premier, Mahlubandile Qwase as Acting HOD for Education pending finalisation of the investigation and any other related processes. While Mabuyane views this as a matter of public interests, he will resist the temptation engaging further on matters of employer and employee relation in the public domain.” MPL and the DA’s Shadow MEC for Education, Yusuf Cassim, said the decision by Mabuyane to suspend Mbude raises serious questions.
“In response to questions posed by the Democratic Alliance during a portfolio committee meeting on Monday, Dr Mbude revealed several concerning issues taking place within the Department,” Cassim said.
“Dr Mbude said she had discovered that the Department had been deliberately submitting manual orders for textbooks and stationery for years, delaying the payment for said materials until the next financial year due to insufficient funds in the current budget. Doing so is a direct violation of the Public Finance Management Act.”
Dr Mbude also informed the committee that the reason the infrastructure budget was underspent, was due to significant irregular and fruitless and wasteful expenditure that she had discovered in the infrastructure programme and that the Department was currently conducting a full audit of infrastructure projects.
“In her response, she revealed that audits for two districts had been completed. These had already uncovered several cases where there were huge discrepancies between what was paid for and what was actually delivered. Dr Mbude said the audit was being conducted because the Auditor-General had found that the Department did not have an asset register.”
Cassim said the DA has submitted follow up questions to the Department in relation to these revelations. “Dr Mbude’s responses to our questions earlier this week have given a glimpse into the extent of the rot inside the Department,” Cassim said.
