Principal earns R1.9m at home

Lewd comments case of Sadtu rep now with MEC

APRINCIPAL found guilty at a hearing of making lewd comments to schoolgirls and then beating them for rejecting his advances has earned more than R1.9-million sitting at home while lawyers argue over his sanctions.

Phindile Magalela, 48, a school principal at JM Ndindwa High School in Balfour outside Fort Beaufort, was suspended on September 11 2013, and eventually found guilty for misconduct last September.

He was also found to have mismanaged school funds totalling R317 316.79.

The charges of lewd conduct related to improper proposals and advances which three girls aged 19 to 20 said had occurred at the school between April 2012 and May 2013.

He was also charged with administering harsh corporal punishment against the girls when they rejected him.

The Daily Dispatch has seen a 45-page disciplinary hearing report compiled by Enoch Khumalo, the labour relations arbitrator who was appointed by the department of education to deal with the case.

Khumalo found against Magalela on all counts and recommended that he be demoted and his salary cut.

The department was represented by its lawyer, advocate Sally Collette, who has since appealed against Khumalo’s sanctions, contending they are insufficient.

Collette argues that Magalela should be charged under Section 17 of the Employment of Educators Act, which carries a mandatory dismissal instead of the more lenient sanctions contained in Section 18 of the Act.

Magalela is an SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) negotiator in the district and was represented by Java Mama Attorneys in King William’s Town.

Called for comment, Magalela said: “I don’t want my business in the papers.”

He later changed his mind and referred the Dispatch to Mama.

Mama said they had also appealed the sanctions “because the findings are wrong”.

Education spokesman Mali Mtima said the appeals were on education MEC Mandla Makupula’s desk awaiting his decision.

Mama said a parallel hearing by the ethics committee of the South African Council of Educators (Sace) had found Magalela not guilty of the charges.

Repeated calls by the Dispatch to Sace over the past two weeks have had no response.

The matter entered parliament in November last year, when Sace was giving feedback on a report into a teachers jobs-for-cash scandal that was being discussed.

DA MP Sonja Boshoff, who sits on the parliamentary portfolio committee on basic education, interjected and outed Magalela for being appointed by Sace onto the ministerial task team after a departmental investigation had found against him for sexual abuse and mismanagement of school funds.

Boshoff also questioned, during a televised parliamentary session, whether a Sace executive was in a relationship with Magalela.

Sace replied that the allegations would be responded to in writing after all the information had been confirmed.

Boshoff told the Dispatch on Friday: “Sace has not gotten back to me with regard to my request. “I am meeting with them next month.” In the Eastern Cape education department’s hearing, one pupil testified that Magalela had called her in 2012 while she and others were returning from a memorial service and proposed that he have a love relationship with her.

The pupil testified that she ignored the principal’s advances and that on more than one occasion he had threatened to administer corporal punishment on her for not responding to his alleged proposal.

“The witness also testified that [Magalela] had on another occasion called her during break and asked with whom she stayed and whether she had a cellphone.

She went on to say she did not have a cellphone and [Magalela] said he was going to buy her one,” the report stated.

The report goes on to say the pupil was called to Magalela’s office to fetch a food voucher and that she had a classmate to accompany her to shield her from his advances.

Another pupil told the panel at the hearing that in May 2013 she had accompanied her friend to the toilet which had no doors and stood guard outside while her friend was sitting in the toilet.

She testified that the principal came to the toilet armed with a stick in his hand and ordered her to leave the toilet.

“The witness testified that the principal pushed her aside and went in while her friend was still in an undressed manner in the toilet. The principal then order the pupil to stand up and commented that she had big thighs,” the report stated.

The pupil who had been seated on the toilet told the panel Magalela’s alleged remarks embarrassed her as she regarded him as a parent.

Another pupil testified that Magalela called her into his office and told her: “You need to have a man like me.”

The report says an allegation was also made that yet another girl was beaten with a stick and had dropped out of school. —