Sunday Argus October 20, 2013 Opinion 21 ‘Ghost’ Pupil Scam Leads to R28m Lesson Destined to Repeat Itself
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Sunday Argus October 20, 2013 Opinion 21 ‘Ghost’ pupil scam leads to R28m lesson destined to repeat itself THE REVELATION that 100 000 perhaps, even worse, been declared The extent of the fraud was such government that has produced “inappropriate structures” in the numbers must be recovered even if “ghost” pupils have existed in the redundant. that it appears fictitious students results, at least as far as the financial province – and this did not include it is only to pay the R28m owed Eastern Cape for a considerable From the very start in 1994 there were even given marks for internal management of the department is buildings that were partially built of to StatsSA for the verification period of time will not come as a were also “ghost” workers whose examinations at the end of each year concerned. mud. process. particular surprise to those salaries were paid into accounts and promoted – and then After a string of disclaimers and Also slipped in last week was the Those found guilty must surely accustomed to the “haunted” nature controlled by what one might call conveniently dropped out of the adverse audit opinions it achieved a fact that the “one-school-a-week” face severe sanction and, if the of the public service, generally, in their “handlers” and, of course, system at some point and replaced qualified report for 2012/13. programme only applied during Port Elizabeth case is anything the province. there were the supernumeraries, by yet another “ghost” pupil. Given the history, that is quite a term time, which reduces the to judge by, it is highly likely that In cinematic terms, we would staff in excess of complement, some The Education Department significant achievement. number by 13 or more. other teachers would willingly have already seen the premiere of of whom still exist nearly 20 years pointed out that some principals had The DA’s Edmund van Vuuren The additional funds saved as a testify in exchange for a lesser The Haunted Province as far back as were answering their names at a roll later. been caught in the past and had been contends that as a result of the result of employing fewer teachers punishment. the late 1990s and the sequels, The call, the result being that a simple This situation probably would punished but, clearly, the problem 100 000 “ghost” pupils, about 3 000 could have been used to build at least Sadtu has already expressed Return of the Haunted Province and, tallying of the numbers on the class have continued had it not been for was simply too enormous for a more teachers are employed some additional schools and so strong objection to the department’s no doubt, The Revenge of the registers would prove that the the decision to recruit the services of department battling with its own by the department than were reduce what remains a horrific announcement that 5 024 fewer posts Haunted Province, while Empty principal was entitled to be Statistics South Africa to conduct a dysfunctional administration to deal required. number of mud edifices, especially will be available next year – take Desks in the Haunted Province would remunerated at that specific notch. headcount to verify the physical with in a holistic way. If those salaries had been when one considers that it is almost away the estimated 3 000 who should now surely go into production. This filching from the public existence of each and every pupil. It cited the example of one school trimmed from the departmental a decade since the government first not be employed and it is 2 024 – and It’s a terrifyingly simple scam. purse has been going on since 1994 The results, made public last in Port Elizabeth where the budget, more funds would have been gave a commitment to address this has threatened action, which The principal of a school creates and, one suspects, in the former week, revealed there were as many principal and six other teachers available for school infrastructure, problem – almost a generation of probably means a strike at some the names of fictitious pupils with Transkei homeland even before that, as 100 000 “ghosts” in schools across were charged. for example. schoolchildren. point. the result that the total number of such was the shambolic state of the province. The R28 million The teachers testified against the Despite the fanfare with which The real question now is what It will, unfortunately, be all students at the institution increases financial management there. verification exercise found that principal who was dismissed, while it was announced that a new action is going to be taken against too easy for the two issues to to the level where he/she qualifies There has very probably been a while registration figures provided they received sanctions of a final school was being delivered in the those teachers who are prima facie become conflated, with the result for a higher salary because of the conspiracy of silence among other by schools at the beginning of the written warning and fines. Eastern Cape every week, Basic guilty of fraud by accessing higher that no action will be taken against additional numbers. members of staff because had the year suggested that 1 881 404 pupils In fairness, the current state of Education Minister Angie salaries through “cooking class the offenders and, at the risk of To add to the credibility of this real numbers been revealed, some had been enrolled, the real tally the department is a marked Motshekga acknowledged last lists”. being archly cynical, StatsSA will fiction, the non-existent pupils are would almost certainly have faced after the physical headcount was improvement following the week in reply to a question that The money paid to those earn another R28m in a few years’ marked present or absent as if they the prospect of being transferred or 1 787 700. intervention by national there were still 462, mainly mud, principals who inflated pupil time. Keeping up with the neighbours Namibia and South Africa’s political dynamics are markedly similar, not least in the risks that come with ruling elites having a virtual monopoly on power, writes Peter Fabricius HETHER it’s through freedoms more generally, for conscious imitation, example being one of the handful of revolutionary African countries always rated as solidarity, mere “free” (rather than “partly free” or W contagion by “not free”) by Freedom House. proximity or just the result of Yet Hopwood also identified similar historical and current several significant shortcomings in circumstances, Namibian ruling media freedom, not least the lack of party politics track those of South any constitutionally or legally Africa in some important respects. guaranteed access to public Or vice versa, Namibians would information and a government probably assert, reminding South prepared to resort to a 1947 law (ie, Africans that they had their first dating back to the era of South democratic elections four years Africa’s control of the country) to before South Africa did. deny the public what should be The similarities are underscored relatively innocuous information, – and perhaps exaggerated – by the such as the report of the fact that the two countries are on the Delimitation Commission which same basic electoral cycle, with investigated provincial Namibia also going into elections boundaries. next year. MOVING UP: Nambian prime Hopwood believes Swapo’s Like South Africa, and in fact minister Hage Geingob virtual monopoly on power has been more so, Namibia is a de facto one- good for the country in one party state. At the last elections in important respect – it has 2009 the South West African People’s minister Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana or contributed to political stability. But Organisation (Swapo) won almost the more radical Jerry Ekandjo. Not the downside is that it has made 75 percent of the vote (compared to least because Geingob is not an Swapo complacent and arrogant and just under 66 percent for the ANC) Oshiwambo, the ethnic group which so it has not addressed vital national and the Namibian opposition is even has dominated Swapo to date, problems such as poverty and weaker and more splintered than providing all of its leaders. unemployment. South Africa’s. Swapo’s youth league, perhaps And corruption is rising. And And so – even more so than in predictably, backed Ekandjo. In the authoritarian legislation is South Africa – the focus of political end Geingob saw them off, though beginning to creep into a parliament analysis is on divisions within with just over half the vote. which rubber stamps it without Swapo rather than on opposition The election of Geingob question. Hopwood sees the from outside the party. Swapo is also effectively anointed him to succeed possibility of Swapo losing a little a “broad church” accommodating a Swapo and national president LAST TERM: Namibian Herero women walk past an election poster of Namibian president and Swapo leader Hifikepunye Pohamba. PICTURE: AP ground in next year’s elections, if wide spectrum of political ideology, Hifikepunye Pohamba, who must not to the weak opposition, then to from moderate technocrats to stand down before next year’s apathy. leftwing radicals. And also, like elections when he will have served by extolling the virtues of didn’t get quite that far but did fierce that something else might tolerance may run only as far as it And if it does start losing South Africa’s ANC, the pragmatic his constitutionally limited two Zimbabwean president Robert manage to shut him up, at least befall him before the elections that will not threaten their hold on support, he wonders if its highly moderates are in control, which terms.