Durban - Thousands of KwaZulu-Natal teachers were still waiting to have their sick leave and ill-health retirement applications dating back two years finalised, MPLs on the portfolio committee for education heard on Friday.
The backlog of nearly 5 000 applications accumulated because of a legal battle over a contract to supply the national government with health risk managers, which rendered education departments unable to appoint independent assessors to process applications for incapacity leave and ill-health retirement.
Documents presented by the department to the committee upset the MPLs, who were concerned about the time it took to process applications, and the expense of employing substitute teachers.
Officials were also grilled over a Phoenix teacher who had taken 1 522 days of sick leave over a 15-year period, and had been axed, but two years later was still being paid her salary as her appeal had yet to be heard.
Health risk managers were to be appointed by the Public Service and Administration Department in 2012, but the entire process had been put on ice after a court challenge by an unsuccessful bidder.
Eventually, applications received from January 2013 to October 2013 were assigned to Metropolitan Health Risk Management to process.
Of the 3 516 applications for short-term sick leave, just 368 have been finalised. Of the 728 applications for long-term sick leave, only 84 have been finalised, and of the 11 applications for ill-health retirement, four have been finalised.
Another 1 193 leave applications have yet to be submitted to the health risk managers.
A different company, Thandile Health Risk Management, has been assessing incapacity leave and ill-health retirement leave applications dating from November last year.
Incapacity leave is sick leave taken in excess of the days available within the three-year sick leave cycle. The application is ordinarily forwarded to the independent health risk manager, who investigates each case before approving or declining it. Until the application is declined, teachers remain on extended sick leave with full pay.
Responding to the MPLs, KwaZulu-Natal Education Department head Nkosinathi Sishi said the dismissal of the Phoenix teacher, Teresa Naicker, demonstrated the intolerance of fraud.
Naicker had been found guilty by the department of forging her medical documentation, but had appealed against the finding.
Nathi Ngcobo, of the department’s human resources office, admitted the rate at which applications were being finalised was “not pleasing”, but said that monthly meetings were held with the health risk managers to minimise delays, which, he explained, usually occurred when medical reports had to be queried with the doctors themselves.
Ngcobo said the employment of a number of teachers had been terminated for not submitting documents to explain their absence.
ANC MPL Nontembeko Boyce questioned the reliability of the process, citing a past case in which a teacher had been reinstated because she had not been at fault over missing documentation.
Fellow ANC MPL Jomo Sibiya said the processing occurred at “snail’s pace”.
Committee chairwoman Linda Hlongwa-Madlala asked the department for a more detailed report and questioned why so many teachers were ill.
The Mercury