SADTU is too blemished to be trusted to act ethically
18 December 2015
Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga acknowledged on TV yesterday that In KwaZulua-Natal fear prevented many of the best educators from applying for a promotion. SADTU has allowed its officials to capture the control of education and make it their plaything and fiefdom. Instead of being an occupation union with its focus on professional development, SADTU is an out and out political organisation pursuing a political agenda.
Even though SADTU is aware of all of the allegations, going back many years, it did nothing whatsoever to clean up its act. It allowed the rot to spread. SADTU has also done nothing to make teaching into a respected profession attracting the best brains of the country. Its failure has taken away the satisfaction it once provided educators in our country. Young people are reluctant to take up teaching and those who remain as teachers are very unhappy. In short, SADTU has provided no educational leadership. That is why education in South Africa is in such a dire state.
SADTU is the ANC to all intents and purposes. SADTU rules and is unwilling to be governed. It is a law unto itself. Under SADTU education is in fetters.
Therefore, for SADTU members to be appointed as electoral officers and as temporary staff of the IEC is the same as appointing staff of Luthuli House to oversee elections. COPE is very strongly opposed to SADTU having the management of elections under its control. If SADTU officials participated in the selling of posts and doing elbow twisting to influence promotion outcomes, and doing so for years, without anyone in that organisation lifting a finger to stop such shenanigans, it is not to be trusted. Its lack of ethos will not stop it from stealing elections for the alliance of which it is a component.
Just as the ANC cannot put its officials in charge of any election and then claim that it is free and fair as envisaged in the constitution, it cannot put SADTU members who are cut from the same cloth to act as IEC officials.
As the elections in Tlokwe showed, the stealing of elections is going to become an increasing phenomenon in our country as the ruling party loses support. The IEC, which had earned such a stellar reputation over nearly two decades, started to lose its twinkle in the past few years. The IEC now has to be watched very closely and SADTU members have to be definitely kept out of election venues.
Meanwhile, the police must act while schools are on break against those who committed criminal offences in selling posts. Let them face prosecution before schools open. South Africans must also register their repugnance for all the damage that SADTU is doing to education.
Issued by Dennis Bloem, Spokesperson, COPE, 18 December 2015
