NINETEEN teachers from schools in the Zambezi region were arrested on Monday over a N$10 million salary scam.
Three others are still to be arrested in connection with the dishonest scheme.
They are facing charges of fraud, and contraventions of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act of 2004 (Poca).
The suspects are expected to appear in the Katima Mulilo Magistrate’s Court this week.
Acting Zambezi police regional commander Julia Sakuwa, who confirmed the arrests, said the case was opened by the education ministry after they detected that N$10 million was missing.
Sakuwa said the education ministry conducted an audit which unearthed ‘ghost teachers’ on the payroll, who had cost government about N$10 million.
She added that the scam happened over a period of two years, and went unnoticed because payroll officials were depositing small amounts into ‘ghost teachers’ accounts every month.
“We did our investigations, and got statements from the bank that show how the money was being transferred. As a result, we have arrested them,” Sakuwa said.
Zambezi education director Austin Samupwa told yesterday that after discovering the irregular transactions, an investigation was launched last November.
“Through our routine checks, we came across suspicious transactions in our finance department, and we decided to launch an investigation, using auditors from our headquarters in Windhoek.
“The auditors then concluded their report in August this year, in which they [state] that there were teachers who were getting extra money on our payroll. As a result, N$10 million was missing from our accounts,” he explained.
Samupwa said all implicated teachers were currently employed by the education ministry at primary, secondary and combined schools, but declined to name the schools involved.
“However, two accountants who are also implicated in the matter are no longer working with us as one of them resigned, and the other one just absconded without saying anything earlier this year,” he added.
“We will still watch developments around the case, so it would be premature for me to talk about relief teachers at this point in time as the suspects were just arrested yesterday (Monday). Nonetheless, it is really unfortunate that some people would resort to such activities in the midst of our financial crisis. It is wrong to steal from the government,” he stressed.
The Zambezi arrests come weeks after the announcement, by the education ministry, of an investigation on teachers in Kavango East and West, and the Zambezi, over links to a syndicate allegedly fleecing government out of millions of dollars.
A report by the tabloid in August stated that the education ministry had requested police to probe 39 ‘ghost teachers’ in the three regions.
The report quoted police as saying that they were investigating 22 cases in Zambezi, 12 in Kavango West, and five in Kavango East.
A report compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2015 indicated that government was paying salaries to more than 6 000 ‘ghost teachers’.
Some of the teachers earn N$15 000 per month, while those with degrees earn N$17 000.
News of the scam comes on the heels of the education ministry announcing in July that teaching vacancies have been put on hold due to a lack of funds.
Meanwhile, the Teachers Union of Namibia (TUN) issued a statement yesterday, demanding the release of a list of teaching vacancies countrywide for 2018 in order to accommodate graduates from local teaching institutions and unemployed teachers.
TUN secretary general Mahongora Kavihuha said the ministry has consistently refused to fill vacant teaching posts, and that this has negatively affected the quality of education because teachers are overworked.
“We demand that the bulletin be released before or during the first week of October, failure which will leave TUN and student teachers with no option but to come up with unspecified action,” he threatened.
Kavihuha added that the ministry should stop bilateral agreements to bring in teachers from other countries to work in rural schools with the “misplaced argument that qualified Namibian teachers are refusing to go to rural areas”, because there are many qualified teachers who are unemployed.
“We deny that there are no qualified Namibian teachers who are refusing to go to rural schools. They are just sitting at home without work,” he stressed.
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