Education assistants to be paid Wednesday after delay - Gwarube
Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube says thousands of education assistants' stipends for September will be paid on Wednesday, following delays that left many stranded.
Speaking in Pretoria on Wednesday, Gwarube said the problem was caused by administrative delays in uploading attendance registers.
“After internal investigation, I was informed by the Departmental officials the captured attendance registers were not uploaded in full by the relevant deadline and this led to the funder, namely the Unemployment Insurance Fund, being unable to approve the release of the stipend funding to the Industrial Development Corporation for onward disbursement to education assistants.
“A system of administrative checks and balances, which was meant to safeguard public funds, buckled under pressure and failed to ensure the timeous payment of stipends to education assistants.
“When the system failed, contingency plans were not activated by the responsible departmental officials swiftly enough. Attendance data for September was not submitted on time, leading to thousands of Education Assistants not getting paid on time.
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Gwarube says the verification step is important to ensure that government funds are not paid to ghost workers or people that are not showing up for work.
The minister says over 34,000 education assistants in KwaZulu-Natal were affected and did not receive their R4,000 stipend last week.
"I can confirm that as of this morning, payments have started flowing from the Industrial Development Corporation to Education Assistants.
"This is a massive relief to the thousands of young people who have been waiting for what is due to them. This delay should have never happened, and we will work tirelessly to ensure that this is avoided in the future."
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