MP MAGONGO ACCUSED OF BEING BULLY

LOBAMBA - “He is a bully.”

This was said by two emotional members of the School Committee of Herman Gmeiner (SOS) Primary School when they appeared before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday. They were referring to the School Committee Chairperson, Motshane Member of Parliament (MP), Robert Magongo. A member of the school committee, Joyce Vilakati, accused Magongo of being a tyrant and a hard person to work with.

“I don’t think he regards us as human beings or colleagues because he is a bully. We are bullied by him day-in and day-out. He is a tyrant to work with,” alleged Vilakati when addressing PAC Chairperson Gege MP Musa Kunene. MP Kunene said he would not put the alleged bullying past Magongo because he knew him very well. Kunene said Magongo needed to be called to order.

Bully

“I will not argue on this. It is possibly true. It is like him to be like this. He is a bully,” further alleged Kunene during the sitting. Mtfongwaneni MP Roy Fanourakis said Magongo should consider resigning and focusing on one duty. Fanourakis made an example of himself and how he had to give up being a school committee chairperson in order to be in Parliament. “He must step down. He is seemingly overwhelmed and has a lot on his hands and that is not conducive for the other committee members,” said the MP.

SOS Primary School Head teacher Linda Thwala said Magongo was impossible to work with and their work relationship was tainted by animosity. “Uyabaleka! (It is hard to get hold of him). We end up doing things and communicating over the phone,” said Thwala. Meanwhile, the PAC chairperson adjourned the sitting when SOS Primary School committee members denied knowledge of the decisions supposed to have been taken by other members.

The PAC asked that everyone should be present during the sitting of the SOS Primary School committee, including Magongo, who was reported to be in Ethiopia.
Prince Mfanawemakhosi suggested that continuing with the sitting without the relevant members was pointless. He called the sitting a waste of time and asked that the school appear with all the members present. “This is a waste of time; they all need to be here if we are to proceed with the sitting. Everyone needs to be here. We understand that one committee member passed on, but we need the others here,” said the prince.

The decision to adjourn the sitting came after the two committee members shared that they were not aware of the things that were said to be happening at the school. These include banking of money collected by the school and the decision to charge pupils E100 admission fee instead of the stipulated E50.

Uniform

In his report, Attorney General Timothy Matsebula reported that the school allowed its pupils not to wear school uniform on Fridays for a fee of E2 per pupil, but there were no records of how much revenue was collected each Friday. Based on the number of pupils in the school, it was estimated that the school collected an amount of E7 360 each month and E66 240 per year.

The collections were allegedly not banked in the school’s bank account. This is a violation of the Schools Accounting Regulation 9.0, which requires that the head teacher records all revenue collected by the school. Matsebula also reported that the school charged E100 admission fee per pupil instead of E50. During the year under review, 146 pupils were admitted; therefore, the school collected a total amount of E14 600 instead of E7 300 as admission fees from all new pupils.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: