Eastern Cape EAs and GAs to finally receive salaries after delays
The Eastern Cape Department of Education, in its attempt to ensure that the stipends for EAs and GAs are paid timeously, has on 22 December 2021 taken a decision to allow schools that are participating in phase II of the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative, to process payments for the months of November and December 2021 from their school bank accounts. Initially the stipends were to be implemented utilizing the Bhelela Data Management System, however, this could not be achieved due to the delays in the uploading of data into the system due to inaccuracies in the information provided.
The department in trying to mitigate the delays, committed to effect the payments through BAS system, however, this also proved not to yield any positive results because of incorrect information submitted such as wrong IDs, incorrect banking details, and this led to Treasury rejecting the whole batch to avoid wasteful and fruitless expenditure that may be incurred in the process. Although the department regrets the delays, it has taken a huge risk by authorizing schools to process payments, but this was necessitated by sensitivity to the needs of the young people who are waiting for their monies. There were lessons learnt during the first phase of this program hence the exploration of all safer methods for processing payments in order to avert any negative audit outcomes. Schools are to ensure that they process payments, as per the specified rate for all EAs and GAs.
