Education Department property attached over failure to pay EC teachers

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

The Legal Resource Centres says moveable assets belonging to the Department of Basic Education have been attached after it failed to pay 28 million rand owed to Eastern
Cape teachers.

LRC director, Sarah Septhon, says the Department of Education failed to implement the court order of 20 March 2014, settled in favour of the schools.

She says the goods attached were valued at 1.9 million rand and included over 800 computers and seven vehicles, including those used by Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga and her director general.

The attachment followed legal action by the LRC on behalf of a number of Eastern Cape schools seeking payment for teachers hired to fill vacancies.

Septhon says just days after the goods were attached all but two of the 32 applicant schools had been paid the full amounts owed to them.

The LRC had asked that the teachers be appointed permanently.

Here is the full statement issued on Tuesday:

On the 17 September 2014, the Legal Resources Centre sent a writ of execution to the Sheriff of the High Court, King Williams Town and Pretoria, to attach and take into execution the movable goods of the Eastern Cape Department of Education and the National Department of Education, due to their failure to pay more than R28 million owed to teachers. All but R1.5 million has since been paid.

The LRC has also filed a contempt of court application to be heard on the 30 October 2014 in the Grahamstown High Court.

The attachment of the movable goods came about after protracted legal action by the Legal Resources Centre on behalf of a number of schools in the Eastern Cape who are seeking payment of those teachers hired by the schools to fill vacancies that the Department left open and asking that named educators be appointed permanently to the vacant posts at the schools.

The Department of Education failed to implement the court order of the 20 March 2014, settled in favour of the schools.

The goods that were attached to the value of R1,920,000 include;

Over 800 computers and 7 departmental vehicles, including a Ford Ranger, Ford Focus, a Range Rover, a Toyota Corolla, two Audis and a Mercedes Benz, some of which are believed to be the vehicles used by the Minister and her Director-General at the offices of the Minister of Education.

The LRC has filed a contempt of court application as a result of the failure of the Department to appoint and pay educators on a permanent basis, contrary to the court order. The contempt of court application cites the Minster of Education, the Director-General of Education, the MEC for Education in the Eastern Cape, as well as the Secretary-General of Education, declaring them in breach of the court order. They will be expected to show good cause why they should not be held in contempt of court and face jail time.

On the same day, the LRC will also be representing 90 schools in the Eastern Cape that have opted into a class action requesting that the Court appoints an administrator to receive and pay almost R100 million owed to these schools and to appoint named educators to vacancies at the schools.

Within days of attaching the movable goods, all but two of the 32 applicant schools have been paid the full amount owing to them. The National Department of Education requested the attachments of the property be lifted but the LRC will only do so once the final two schools have been paid.