The education authorities and teacher union Sadtu are to face a series of court challenges from aggrieved teachers and principals who believe they are victims of a jobs-for-cash scam run by corrupt department officials in cahoots with their union counterparts, says a City Press report. Bo Dlamini, the former principal of Durban’s Brettonwood High School, has served a letter of demand for R15m on the department and Sadtu over his dismissal in 2009, which he believes was the result of a campaign by the union to replace him.

Dlamini, then a senior official at rival union Natu, made the decision to go to court after reading the report by the Volmink commission of inquiry into the jobs-for-cash scam. The report found that Sadtu, which had ‘enormous power and influence’, had sought to ‘entrench itself repeatedly and inexorably’. ‘As a form of undue influence or corruption, it opens doors for the use of unorthodox and illegal means to gain advantage. The buying and selling of positions is one such means,’ the report said.

In the letter of demand, Dlamini said that he had ‘real information’ that provincial Education Department officials had ‘worked together with Sadtu officials' in making sure he was removed from his position of principal of the school. Dlamini’s action follows a similar letter of demand for R10m that is being served on the KZN Education Department by Nkonzo Mqadi, who claims he was removed from the system after refusing to continue paying R1 000 a month to a Sadtu provincial executive committee member. In the Eastern Cape, the Port Elizabeth Labour Court will hear an application in November by Queenstown teacher Gaynor Rittles, who is challenging the appointment process at St Theresa's Primary School.

Full City Press report