Employees at Damelin College, an institution of higher learning run by Educor, are frustrated that their salaries haven’t been paid for the past three months.
This after the institution was deregistered together with four others that operate under Educor, in March.
Educor institutions deregistered in March
The Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande, deregistered Educor institutions in March. This was due to their failure to submit their annual financial statements and tax clearance certificates for the 2021/2022 financial years, as proof of their financial viability.
One of the staff members at Damelin, who cannot be named for fear of victimisation, spoke to Sunday World. He said that he is on the verge of losing his house as he has failed to pay for his bond for three months.
“I have worked at Damelin for more than a decade. This treatment is disheartening. It saddens me that even the students who went to the school to improve their lives are now victims of this,” said the staffer.
He further shared that the institution started having financial problems after the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Our problems started… way before the minister deregistered the group. Then we started having issues with electricity because they were not paying the bills. How can an institution that struggled to pay its electricity bill afford to refund the parents?” he asked.
State departments such as labour, CCMA, not helping
He said that their frustrations are made worse by the government departments. These are supposed to protect them, but they do nothing.
“I have lost count of the times I have visited the Department of Labour, CCMA and others. Another frustration is that we do not have a union that would fight for us.”
One of the former lecturers who worked at the campus in Bloemfontein spoke to Sunday World. He said the group is misleading the government because they are still not truthful with their financial records.
“I left the institution after they closed the campus unannounced. This left thousands of employees and students stranded. Damelin is a modern day slavery factory doing harm to professionals,” she said.
Hiring, exploiting foreign nationals
She further said the institution has been hiring a lot of foreign academics to frustrate them.
“They take advantage of all the foreign nationals and not pay them.”
Sunday World sent questions to a PR company that handled Educor’s media queries, Olivia Jones Communications. However, they said they no longer work with Educor.
“We are no longer providing PR assistance to Educor or Damelin. And we are sincerely sorry that we could not provide you with responses to your media queries.”
