The director-general of the national Basic Education Department must explain to a disciplinary panel why he should keep his job.
|||Durban - The director-general of the national Basic Education Department, Bobby Soobrayan, will be forced to explain to a disciplinary panel why he should keep his job.
This follows a probe into allegations levelled against him by the SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu).
Soobrayan is on special level, which is voluntary, until the hearing is complete.
On Tuesday, Sapa reported that a retired judge had been appointed to preside over the disciplinary hearing.
The Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, had asked retired high court Judge Willem van der Merwe to preside at the hearing, education spokesman Panyaza Lesufi said.
Sadtu has repeatedly accused Soobrayan of financial mismanagement and incompetence and has, in recent months, waged an aggressive public campaign to have him and Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga axed.
But educationist Graeme Bloch has questioned whether action against Soobrayan is not diverting Sadtu’s attention from Motshekga - the union expressed its disappointment when she was not axed during the latest cabinet reshuffle by President Jacob Zuma.
In May, in an attempt to put a stop to protests which were primarily over a pay hike for Grade 12 exam markers, Motshekga made concessions which included referring allegations against Soobrayan to the Public Service Commission.
The body recommend that Motshekga bring disciplinary charges against Soobrayan.
While Lesufi would not provide details of the charges, he said these were not related to the Limpopo textbooks crisis, which was the subject of separate and ongoing investigation.
Soobrayan’s disciplinary hearing was a result of the probe into a range of allegations listed in the memorandum of demands which Sadtu served on Motshekga in April, he said.
The memorandum accused Soobrayan of failures and transgressions that included flouting the Public Finance Management Act by signing an agreement with teachers’ unions to grant Grade 12 exam markers a 100 percent tariff increase when he had not been mandated to do so, and of claiming travel expenditure over the Easter period as work-related when it was not.
Earlier this month, Sadtu vowed to ramp up its campaign to have him dismissed, after media reports quoted him as suggesting that older teachers should retire early to make room for new graduates.
“As far as we are concerned the DG must be fired for violating the PFMA,” said Sadtu’s national general secretary, Mugwena Maluleke.
However, the National Professional Teachers Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) and the National Teachers Union (Natu) have emphasised that the disciplinary charges were not a presumption of guilt.
“There is a need to clear the air. You cannot have a senior official working under a cloud. It may be that there is no substance to the allegations,” Basil Manuel, head of Naptosa, said.
Natu deputy head Allen Thompson said that Motshekga had been obliged to act in the face of “allegations of this magnitude”.
However, Lesufi rejected suggestions that Motshekga was bowing to pressure from Sadtu, saying that she had appointed an independent body, and was affording him an opportunity to present his side of the case. She would otherwise have been accused of sweeping the issue under the carpet, he said.
leanne.jansen@inl.co.za
The Mercury