All teachers implicated in the jobs for cash scandal must be immediately suspended while police investigate bribery and corruption charges, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Thursday.

“There are two very good reasons to suspend all teachers and officials implicated in the ‘Jobs for Cash’ scandal,” the DA’s education spokesperson, Gavin Davis, said.

“Firstly, it is unlikely that teachers and officials with clouds of suspicion hanging over their heads will be able to focus on the education of children.

“Secondly, we need to minimise the chance that high-ranking teachers and officials will abuse their positions to interfere with the gathering of evidence against them.”

Davis said he has sent Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga a list naming 17 teachers in KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape to ask whether they had been suspended, and if not, why not.

Motshekga last week released the findings of an ministerial task team that probed claims that members of the South African Democratic Teachers Union were selling jobs for money.

The task team found that there was a firm possibility of bringing criminal charges against some of those implicated.