Alex Matlala

Alex Matlala

Thirty-five temporary school teachers at Mopani in Limpopo have threatened to down tools following the education department's failure to pay their salaries in the last three months.

Spokesman for the teachers, Rodgers Ramoba, said the department employed them temporarily in August but had failed to pay them since they started work.

The teachers had approached the department on several occasions demanding payment but their pleas had fallen on deaf ears.

"We are now swimming in a pool of frustration and do not know what to do to get our salaries. Our children are facing a black Christmas," said Ramoba, a teacher at Makaba Secondary School in the Modjadjiskloof area.

"Each time we approach the department, they send us from pillar to post," he added.

Ramoba, a father of five and the only bread-winner in his family, said : "We appeal to the ministry of education to intervene and help us get paid."

Spokesman for the education department, Ndo Mangala, confirmed yesterday that the department had failed to pay the teachers for the past three months.

"We are still working on the technicality and I can now place it on record that the teachers will be paid this month.

"We finished processing their salaries last week and we believe their problem will be a thing of the past, come month end," Mangala said.