Tshwarelo Hunter Mogakane
Pretoria - A chief director within the Mpumalanga Education Department has been suspended over a series of complex financial violations that resulted in local students enrolled at Russian universities facing expulsion and eviction from their accommodation facilities.
The suspension follows a provincial delegation’s visit to the Russian Federation led by Premier Refilwe Mtsweni-Tsipane, tasked with looking into the long-standing matter.
Provincial education spokesperson Gerald Sambo said the chief director was placed on precautionary suspension while the government investigated what went wrong.
“The premier’s visit to Russia uncovered a lot of questions that still need to be answered. For this reason, the chief director responsible for the student exchange programme had to be placed on suspension so that there is no interference or any sense of meddling.
“Once the investigation is concluded, the premier or MEC will make pronouncements, and if the chief director did not violate any laws, the suspension will be lifted, but it is only the outcome of the investigation that will shine a light on the way forward,” Sambo told the Pretoria News.
According to Mtsweni-Tsipane, her visit to Russia uncovered a series of complex events that led to the situation.
She said the student exchange programme involved a provincially-procured company to manage 221 students enrolled at 11 Russian institutions of higher learning.
These students are studying aviation, engineering, medicine and information technology.
The premier said they found there was also an agency in Russia that dealt with the management of the Mpumalanga students, which resulted in the bloating of rates and invoices.
“That agency went to the universities and said ‘we will get you students from foreign countries who want to study here in Russia’. They then entered into contracts with various universities in Russia in exchange for students to go and study at those universities.
“The students from our province were then taken over by the agency, with whom we had no contract. They took over the process and handed the students over to the universities. From time to time, the university would bill them and they would pay the invoices,” said Mtsweni-Tsipane.
“Upon receipt of the invoices, the agency would then generate their own invoices in their own name instead of taking the original invoices (from the universities) as they are and attaching their management fee.
“Instead of doing that, they generated new invoices in their name, which did not bear the name of the universities. That has been a problem for us, which was also raised by the auditor-general. When you compare the fee structures from the various universities, there are discrepancies,” she said.
The premier added that the amounts charged differed vastly from verified rates.
“The money that we are paying is far higher than what you could find if you compare the going rate on the internet in terms of the fees. We asked the universities to give us their invoices and the academic records of the students, but they were not able to.
“We went on this trip to ascertain what was going on. These children were phoning day in and day out to say that they were being evicted from their respective residential areas.”
Mtsweni-Tsipane and her delegation also visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Higher Education in Russia.
DA provincial leader Jane Sithole said the party welcomed the suspension of the chief director.
Pretoria News