Our campaign against fly-by-night FET colleges is in full swing. Yesterday (May 24) Police with the help of SASCO successfully arrested Hokins, owner of bogus FET College (Immaculate College of Commerce and Engineering). In the past week alone, numerous other owners of bogus institutions have been arrested with the work of SASCO and the SAPS. All these institutions are in the Johannesburg vicinity alone!

We call on all bogus FET colleges to close shop immediately, refund students and pay innocent workers because in the coming weeks we will expose more of these institutions and we will ensure that police arrest all those who are stealing money from the poor by posing as legitimate institutions. We also call on all our members to submit a list of all FET institutions that operate in the country in order for us to determine with relevant authorities whether these are legitimate institutions or not.

We call on accredited FET colleges to open space for students from these bogus institutions so as to ensure that they do not fall to the streets. We also call on relevant government departments to open employment opportunities for workers who were employed by these institutions. This is because we believe that owners of these bogus institutions did not only exploit the yearning of students for education by exploited the yearning by workers for employment.

We commend the rapid response by the Minister Nathi Mthethwa and the telling intervention by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe. We hope that this signals a new beginning in the manner in which our government deals with issues.

Statement issued by SASCO president, Mbulelo Mandlana, May 25 2010

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