The Citizen reports that members of the Afrikaans teachers union the Suid Afrikaanse Onderwysers Unie (SAOU), which has just over 37,000 members, are asking serious questions about its CEO’s astronomic annual salary of more than R3.6 million.  

Not only does Chris Klopper earn about six times more than his counterpart at the much larger SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu), he earns almost as much as President Cyril Ramaphosa.  A member, who did not want to be named, commented:  “He calls himself a CEO (chief executive officer) to justify his super salary.  There is no one in his position who earns so much money.  He, together with his cronies, created the position of a CEO so he could earn big bucks.  Where have you heard of a CEO in a union?  The position is not provided for in the union’s constitution.”  An internal investigation conducted last year confirmed that Klopper took home R3,651,851 from the “group entities”, plus a “motor benefit”.  The investigation, which members have rejected as a farce, indicated that the salary package included R1.6m that Klopper earns from the SAOU, R1.9m from the SA Education Foundation (SAEF), which does business with the union, as well as R57,735 from the TO Strand company.  Police are currently probing the union’s top brass on allegations of fraud, corruption and contravention of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act.

• Read the full original of Sipho Mabena’s report on this story at The Citizen

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