Three million was stolen
from the education budget by The Matthew
Goniwe School of Leadership and Governance (ANC) in Gauteng! It seems they cannot help themselves and we can always count on
the ANC to steal the money.
No wonder there is no money
for education, medical and housing. What is going to happen when there is no
more money to loot. I guess we will all wait and see what happens in the
future. Will the ANC government make amends and set a good example for the
upcoming municipal elections or will they ignore the plight of the poor? The
stealing does not stop.
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Source:
Religious groups pull out after R3m goes missing
Johannesburg - Faith-based organisations have pulled out of a
partnership with the Gauteng Department of Education due to lack of clarity
regarding what was done with R3 million
of funding and failure to honour repeated requests for meetings.
The initiative, known as Faith for Quality Education, saw the
two organisations sign a memorandum of understanding in March 2013 for them to
work together to enhance teaching and learning in the province.
The Faith Based Organisations (FBO), chaired by Anglican
Bishop Peter Lee, said they were terminating the agreement because repeated
attempts by them to clarify roles, responsibilities and reporting structures of
the partnership had been unsuccessful.
“The programme has been bounced about from one directorate or
sub-directorate to another, without consultation or effective follow-up. As a
result, the lines of communication, accountability and effective action in both directions between the parties and the MOU
remain obscure,” Lee said.
The bishop said that initially the Gauteng Department of
Education (GDE) made one person available for their committee to liaise with
and the programme was being rolled out with the various churches playing roles
in schools like offering counselling, picking up children whose parents had
died and helping in fundraising initiatives.
“But then a new person would arrive at every meeting, and then
nobody would show up, or they showed up
late. We didn't have the same person
twice. I had the sense that they would talk about partnering with you, but they
were not taking it seriously. We felt like we were being used,” Lee said.
He said that last year the committee was advised that a budget of R3m had been granted to the programme,
but that funds must be administered by the Matthew Goniwe School of Leadership
and Governance under the direction of the Liaison Committee.
Lee said they were told by the GDE secretariat, Richard Setati, that if they spent the money wisely,
they could get R18m in funding the next year. “We had an AGM in October and we
asked for a financial report. We got a page with six lines indicating the money
had been spent,” Lee said.
He said one of the payments was R1.5m for “QTLC”.
“This we discovered was money spent on a conference. What conference we don't know,” he said.
The bishop said no expenditure
had been authorised by the committee.
Having been made aware of the unauthorised expenditure in
October last year, Lee said their executive immediately brought this to the
attention of the then acting chief officer of the GDE, J van Coller.
“Four months down the line, it would appear that no action
has been taken in this respect,” Lee said.
Despite a week of repeated e-mails, phone calls and SMSes
requesting comment from the Gauteng Department of Education, no response to The
Star's questions was received.
“What is the point of a memorandum of understanding, however noble its intentions, if one of the
parties - the GDE - steadily ignored the other party?
It is indeed a great pity and deeply saddening that such a worthwhile
initiative should flounder in this way,” Lee said.
Millions of questions
According to its website, The Matthew Goniwe School of
Leadership and Governance is a semi-autonomous, non-profit organisation
established to serve as the training arm of the Gauteng Department of
Education.
After public and independent schools, Matthew Goniwe and the
Sci-Bono Discovery Centre receive the highest amount of revenue from the GDE –
more than special schools.
Last year, Matthew Goniwe received more than R324m and
Sci-Bono received R207m. This financial year,
the two institutions will get far more with Matthew Goniwe set to receive receive R451m and Sci-Bono R477m.
DA MPL for education in Gauteng Khume Ramulifho said he has
observed many programmes going through Matthew Goniwe, but he said it is not
clear where the money is spent as they
had not seen separate financial reports for the institution.
The last financial reports placed on the website were for the
2012/13 financial year.
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