By Levy Masiteng
The Gauteng department of education (GDE) has urged the national Basic Education Department to fast track its verification process of education and general assistants to ensure that they are paid without further delay.
“The DBE acknowledged that their new centralised payment system introduced for Phase V is experiencing challenges such as verifying candidate ID numbers against the Department of Home Affairs database, matching those ID numbers and names to the correct bank account details and resolving discrepancies where candidate data does not align with application data on the SAYouth platform,” GDE spokesperson Steve Mabona said on Tuesday.
He said that while the DBE had indicated that these processes were intended to strengthen accountability and reduce the risk of fraud, they have caused widespread delay in releasing payments to some candidates, including in Gauteng.
This follows the GDE warning that about 8000 assistants in Gauteng were facing potential delays in their first payment cycle.
“We remain hopeful that the DBE will fast-track and conclude their verification processes to ensure that all youth employed at our schools are paid without any further delay,” Mabona said in a statement.
He said Gauteng’s data verification was largely completed and validated at school and district level, however, some assistants “remain affected by this delay due to the DBE national centralisation of the payment process”.
The assistants were placed at schools from 1 June as part of the Basic Education Employment Initiative, which is aimed at supporting teaching and learning at schools.
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