Homes damaged in row over principal

Headmaster, governing board members point fingers at each other

Tension between the acting headmaster of a top rural Eastern Cape school and two school governing board (SGB) members has been inflamed by an attack on the homes of the SGB pair on Monday night.

Damage was not officially assessed, but Dalindyebo High SGB chair Nosive Sililo and treasurer Nomandithini Mooi told the Dispatch a door was damaged and a window broken when stones were thrown at their homes.

The school in Sithebe village is 10km from Mvezo, Nelson Mandela’s childhood home.

Sililo and Mooi told the Dispatch they had opened a case of malicious damage to property.

Sililo, 37, claimed a group of village youths and some pupils at the school were behind the attack.

She said a door in her home was damaged and a window in Mooi’s house was broken.

Eastern Cape police spokesperson Captain Khaya Tonjeni confirmed the malicious damage to property case had been opened. “No suspects have been arrested yet. The investigation continues,” he said.

Sililo accused acting Dalindyebo principal Wiseman Mbangata of manipulating and inciting the youths for his own gain, adding there had been ongoing protests in the village with pupils vowing not to return to school until both she and Mooi had been removed from their positions.

This, she said, was because they were viewed as a stumbling block to him being employed permanently as principal.

This was emphatically denied by Mbangata, who said that while there were problems with the two SGB members, an attempt was being made to drag him into a political contest which had nothing to do with him or the school.

He said Sililo was a ward committee member and was facing a push in the village to unseat her.

Sililo told the Dispatch: “We are now living in fear after this attack.

“We opened a case in Bityi on Tuesday. They [militant youths] say they want us removed from the SGB.

“He [Mbangata] has been sending them messages on their phones not to come to school as there will be protests. He is fighting to be principal.”

Sililo said pupils have not been back to school since the beginning of July when they officially reopened.

She said parents were worried about the situation as it would affect pupils’ learning programme.

Mbangata dismissed the claims about the school being shut, saying Grade 12 pupils had been at school up until when schools were closed again on July 27.

He said: “I have nothing to do with what is happening there at all. Its all lies [that I am inciting pupils]. She is just feeling the pressure as people want to remove her as a ward committee member, which has nothing to do with this school.”

Mbangata and Sililo claimed they had received death threats. Mbangata said he had reported them to education authorities.

He said the school was run last year by an administrator appointed by the provincial education department. He said the administrator’s contract was not renewed this year and he was appointed acting principal, a move which was rejected by the SGB.

He said a meeting in Mthatha on Thursday had found that most SGB members did not possess the required expertise to be part of the structure, except for Sililo and Mooi.

Sililo told the Dispatch the fight began when they questioned why the school was using two accounts, and why a teacher who left the school three years ago was still a signatory.

Mbangata countered, saying one of the accounts had never been used for any financial transactions and that he had provided proof to education authorities when it was raised.

He said district education authorities would be convening a meeting with all the affected parties to try to resolve the impasse on Thursday.

Questions were sent to provincial education spokesperson Loyiso Pulumani but he had not responded to them by print deadline on Wednesday.