By Akani Nkuna
The Democratic Alliance has issued a call to action amid the deepening financial crisis within KwaZulu-Natal’s education department.
With budget constraints threatening critical services, the party is urging provincial leaders to put aside political differences and personal agendas.
The DA insists that the welfare and future of learners must come first, warning that continued mismanagement could severely impact education delivery across the province.
“Two issues in particular expose the devastating mismanagement that continues to define this department – the halting of critical infrastructure projects by the province’s department of public works and infrastructure due to non-payment and the looming threat of salary payment crisis that could leave thousands of educators unpaid,” KZN education spokesperson Sakhile Mngadi said in a statement on Friday.
Following a February oversight visit by Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Basic Education, provincial education HOD Nkosinathi Ngcobo revealed that the province’s education crisis deepened after the National Treasury failed to allocate extra funds for public sector wage hikes.
Speaking to Inside Education last month, Ngcobo explained that the department was forced to cover the shortfall from its own limited budget, severely hampering its ability to maintain schools and cover essential services like electricity.
“We are not close to a point where employees will not be getting paid. Salaries are protected,” he emphasised during the interview.
In a recent briefing to the KZN legislature’s portfolio committee on finance, the department’s CFO, Ntokozo Mlaba, issued a stark warning about the impact of ongoing budget cuts.
Mlaba revealed that the department may be unable to fund the salaries of 2336 teaching posts during the current financial year, raising serious concerns about staffing shortages and the stability of education delivery in the province.
The DA said that despite the severity of the crisis, education MEC Mbali Hlomuka has shown little urgency and was failing to fully engage with province’s education portfolio committee.
The party claimed that Hlomuka has withheld critical information and lacked political will to implement meaningful reforms to address the matter.
“This is not just poor governance – it is a betrayal of every child who depends on our public education system to escape poverty. The DoE is not just cash-strapped, it is functionally bankrupt in terms of vision and leadership,” Mngadi added.
The DA called for urgent reforms to KZN’s education budget, including restructuring the wage bill through an audit of ghost posts and a freeze on non-essential hires.
It also proposed a ring-fenced infrastructure fund, managed transparently, to ensure timely payments to service providers and prevent further delays in critical school construction and maintenance projects.
INSIDE EDUCATION
