Education manager extorts R1,500 a month from temporary teachers

A circuit manager in North West allegedly withheld permanent jobs from teachers, appointed them temporarily then extorted R1,500 from them every month.

Petrus Mokobe from Tshing district last week appeared in the Ventersdorp magistrate's court with Lydia Masiu, a principal at Phiri Secondary School, for five charges of corruption. They were granted R8,000 bail each.

Hawks spokesperson Col Tinyiko Mathebula said investigations revealed that Mokobe, 63, and Masiu, 53, allegedly solicited gratification from the complainants in exchange for teacher posts in the local schools. 

“The complainants reportedly paid the accused R1,500 in installments,” said Mathebula.

The teacher who blew the lid off the alleged jobs-for-cash scam said he fell into depression after the scam was exposed.

Oupa Thipe said some people were grateful to him for revealing the corruption while others held a different view.

However, he said, he was “not regretting anything” and hoped the “cancer” of selling jobs would soon end so that unemployed teachers could finally be employed.

Thipe, a teacher for 30 years, said he was thrown into the jobs scam when he returned to the profession after he had left it in 2015.

In 2018, he returned to teaching and found a temporary position at Phiri Secondary School at Boikhutso village, 10km north of Ventersburg town.

After two years, Masiu did not renew Thipe's contract and the 54-year-old began a life of moving from one temporary post to another.

At the time, Mokobe was his neighbour and given his status in the education department, Thipe would often ask him about available positions to no avail.

“One day a friend of mine told me 'you will keep moving from school to school in Ventersdorp as a temporary teacher until you bribe Mokobe’.”

Thipe said he did not take the friend's advice seriously as he felt his experience was enough to get a job.

In the meantime, Mokobe got into the habit of asking Thipe for loans.

“He’d tell me that his children back in Welkom [Free State] don’t have electricity and would ask me to lend him [up to] R1,000.”

Later a new school in the area, Boikhutsong Primary, was opened and Mokobe told him to apply and he did. 

Later, Thipe said Mokobe asked him for more loans and he gave him the money though he was never paid back. Still, he did not suspect anything.

Everything came to the fore a few months ago when someone sent him an audio clip in which a woman believed to be Masiu was secretly recorded talking to another teacher about her and Mokobe’s alleged corruption.

In the recording, the person tells a young teacher that she’d have to pay Mokobe if she wanted a permanent job.

“A lot of teachers pay him in all the schools. He’s building a double-storey house. This means when he gets paid, his salary goes towards the double-storey. Then he starts doing collections [from the teachers].”

Towards the end of the recording, the woman says even Thipe had to pay Mokobe a bribe to secure a job at Boikhutsong.

She also reveals that Mokobe had withheld permanent positions at Boikhutsong, appointed everyone on a temporary basis and extorted R1,500 from them every month.

Thipe said hearing the clip shocked and also angered him.

“I thought I was taken to that school because I was the most experienced teacher among young applicants who Mokobe said I’d be of great help to them.

“When he asked for loans, I wasn’t aware I was paying for a job. Imagine a man of my experience paying for a job? I don’t need to do that."

Thipe then reported the matter which led to the department of education suspending Masiu and Mokobe.

Departmental spokesperson Mphata Molokwane confirmed the pair's suspension. 

SowetanLIVE