In a joint media briefing in Pretoria, the basic education and labour departments confirmed that education and general assistants have begun receiving their September stipends as of Wednesday morning.
This follows after thousands of young people across the country have been eagerly waiting for their stipends, which were delayed due to the late submission of verification documents by the DBE.
Both ministerial offices confirmed that the payment impasse has been resolved, following a lengthy engagement last night between relevant stakeholders.
"As this morning, I want to also confirm that the UIF (Unemployment Insurance Fund) has released the funds for stipend payments. And I can also confirm that assistants and general school assistants have begun receiving the payments from 10:00am today," said labour deputy minister, Jomo Sibiya.
Assistants banking with Capitec and FNB were paid yesterday, while others banking with different institutions will receive their funds in line with standard inter-bank clearance times.
With more than 150,000 youth employed under the Basic Education Employment Initiative (BEEI) Phase five, DBE minister Siviwe Gwarube reassured that such administrative issues should cease to happen.
The minister sternly said officials responsible for delayed payments will be held accountable.
"I have instructed both the Director-General and the Acting Director-General to immediately institute appropriate consequence management and hold accountable any officials who are found to have failed to discharge their responsibilities in the management and implementation of the BEEI," said Gwarube.
Gwarube also clarified that delayed payments was due to late submission and verification of attendance registers by the DBE to the labour department.
According to the minister's words, this was to ensure funds are not disbursed to ghost workers.
"This verification is a mandatory step to ensure that government funds are not paid to ghost workers, or even to people who were no longer showing up for work to provide the services that they are paid for.
"To avoid any form of corruption, the necessary measures have to be in place to ensure that each and every Rand dispersed through the BEEI can be accounted for," said Gwarube.
She added that a timeous reminder will be sent to schools to remind them to upload their attendance registers on time.
According to the Service Level Agreement (SLA), the DBE must upload attendance registers by the 15th of every month for the labour department to process payments.
"We are building stronger systems to ensure that payments are reliable, timely, and transparent," said Gwarube.
The Star
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