‘TEACHERS’ INVESTIGATOR JOB DOESN’T EXIST’

phephile@times.co.sz

MBABANE - The government could be faced with a litany of lawsuits from teachers who faced misconduct cases in the past few years.

This is because of allegations that Knowledge Ngwenya, who investigates cases of misconduct performs duties not meant for his post.
These are allegations which are contained in the Annual Audit Report of the Auditor General (AG) for the Year Ended March 31, 2018. The Ministry’s Principal Secretary and other relevant officers are yet to appear before the Public Accounts Committee and answer on the allegations.

Ngwenya is one of the officers of the Ministry of Education and Training who are subject to a query by the AG, Timothy Matsebula, as he allegedly failed to assume his duties after he was promoted.  The AG alleged that an officer holding the position of Assistant Career Guidance Officer, Grade C4, did not report to his duty station after he had been promoted in August 2014.

He said the officer accepted the promotion from being an Administrative Clerk grade B2 to Assistant Carrier Guidance Officer Grade C4, a post held at Nhlangano, under Career Guidance Office in the Ministry of Education and Training. 

“It appears that the ministry needed an investigative officer. However, the controlling officer did not explain why a post for an investigative officer was not created,” the AG stated. 

The AG said the ministry incurred an expenditure amounting to E524 352.38 in respect of salaries paid to Ngwenya, yet he did not assume new duties as per his promotion, from August 2014 to March 31, 2018.

Matsebula said it was also disturbing that the Director of Career Guidance, where this post falls under, was not aware of this arrangement and the CSC Form 7 (a) was not signed by the director, instead it was signed by someone not directly supervising the officer.
 According to the General Order A.110 and A111, an appointment becomes effective from the date on which the officer assumes duty and should be paid full salary from that date.

“I noted that the officer assumed the duties on paper, in order to gain the salary increase but did not report to the duty station despite several correspondences written to him by the ministry demanding him to report to his new duty station in Nhlangano,” the AG stated in the report.
 He said that he alerted the controlling officer that after accepting the promotion to the new grade in August 2014, the officer should have reported to his new duty station, and started executing duties related to the position. 

He also alleged that in her response, the Controlling Officer concurred with his observation and promised to deploy the officer to his duty station.
“She stated that the reason the officer was not deployed to his workstation was that upon receipt of the promotion authority, the officer appealed the deployment to the Shiselweni Regional Education Officer, citing issues of safety, as during the cause of his duties he would receive death threats,” the AG stated.

Matsebula said the controlling officer stated that the Office of the Principal Secretary, noted the concerns of the officer, accepted his appeal and maintained him at the headquarters. Then the principal secretary instructed the officer to assist the office of the Schools Manager with an investigation of cases of misconduct by teachers which had been reported to the Schools Manager.

“The Controlling Officer also disclosed that her office arranged that the officer continues to do the investigation work as his recommendation for promotion was based on the officer’s investigation expertise,” the AG stated.

Matsebula stated the response of the Controlling Officer was not satisfactory as it was also reported that the same Ministry allocated investigative responsibilities to the officer, were not related to the position that was advertised and to which he was promoted.
She also mentioned that the ministry had five officers per region which means that they had enough officers at each region.

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