Education MEC in the province, Tate Makgoe, announced via social media on Thursday (20 May) that payment of the monies into different schools’ accounts was meant to be done on Monday 17 May at the department’s offices in Bloemfontein. However, many parts of the Free State capital were largely non-functional this week due to the Mangaung shutdown, which was only suspended on Wednesday following two days of negotiations. Makgoe says the funds will reflect in Free State schools’ accounts on Friday 21 May.

At the time of the shutdown, the April payments were already delayed. On 14 May, Makgoe apologised on social media for the aforementioned delays and vowed to have the matter resolved by Thursday 20 May, but then the shutdown occurred. The education and general school assistants’ tenure at schools came to an end at the end of April 2021. OFM News reported that was deemed a setback for those assistants who were very much dependent on the salary, as some were breadwinners of their families.

OFM News previously reported that Howard Ndaba, spokesperson for the Education Department in the Free State, said that there is nothing they can do as a department to help assistants that lost their jobs because the project was presidential, and it was only stimulated by the government to create jobs due to Covid-19. Ndaba earlier stated more than R400 000 was given to the department last year as part of this initiative, to hire assistant educators and general school assistants.

OFM News