Confusion over who exactly is running EC education

Anyone wondering whether the beleaguered Eastern Cape education department is still under administration or not is not alone – the education MEC himself, Mandla Makupula, is “not sure” either.

Answering questions from the Bhisho legislature’s education portfolio committee members on Tuesday, Makupula said he was “not sure” whether or not the national Basic Education Department was still babysitting his department through a Section 100(1)(b) intervention.

Makupula instead urged multiparty committee members, led by chairman and ANC MPL Fundile Gade, to summon Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga “to give her own side of the story” because as MEC he had not received any update on the intervention since 2014.

The troubled department, which is the only provincial government department to have failed to obtain an unqualified audit opinion in the 2015/2016 financial year, was subjected to a intervention by the national government five years ago.

Section 100 allows the national government to intervene and take control when provinces fail to deliver on their constitutional obligations.

Senior national education official Matanzima Mweli was tasked with overseeing the intervention. However, a year later, former Mpumalanga education head Ray Tywakadi was appointed to lead the intervention and take full control of education in the province.

Former national education CFO Phillip Benade and the former head of the North West education department, Dr Anis Karodia, were roped in to assist Tywakadi.

They were to run the department’s infrastructure programme and oversee finance, scholar transport and the feeding scheme.

At the time, Motshekga said the decision would only be reversed once the province achieved a 70% matric pass rate.

It has been one of the worst-performing provinces over the years and has never achieved more than a 70% matric pass rate.

At the time Motshekga said if senior managers of the department wanted their powers back, they would have to abide by her conditions.

“They must meet the 70% matric pass rate. They must keep a clean audit, they must deal with instability, so there won’t be Section 100.”

She added that areas of intervention would include curriculum support, infrastructure, human resources, budgeting and planning.

Makupula’s department appeared before the committee on Tuesday where their 2015-16 annual report was scrutinised.

Asked by ANC MPL Phumeza Mpushe to provide the committee with an update on the Section 100 intervention, Makupula said he was not sure if it was still in place or not.

“I want to be honest with you, honourable members, sitting here, I can say there is, there is no, Section 100 intervention in the province.

“There is such intervention because we did sign and the minister sent a team to lead such administration. First it was Matanzima Mweli, then Ray Tywakadi in 2014, whom we later indicated to the minister we think his skills and experience can make a difference in the department and that we wanted to contract ,” said Makupula.

“The minister said if Tywakadi wanted to apply, we should let him do so. That was the last time we heard anything about Section 100 from the national government.

“We are still looking forward to sitting down with the minister, for her to finally determine what is the way forward in relation to Section 100.

“Otherwise we are still continuing with our work,” Makupula told the committee.

He asked the committee to invite Motshekga “to come and explain herself because we are the ones upon whom Section 100 is being implemented, so we cannot be the ones who say it is still there or it is not”.

Attempts to reach Motshekga’s office were unsuccessful at the time of writing. — asandan@dispatch.co.za