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Wikus Naudé, the principal of Wellington school Hugenote Hoërskool (also known as Huguenot High), is being investigated for some of his recent spending habits.

Naudé (in the blue shirt and seated on the couch above), who has come under fire in the past few years for other school-related issues, has again attracted the attention of the provincial education department.

TimesLIVE reports that the allegations against Naudé include:

• The school is picking up his tab for steak ordered from a local supermarket;
• Wine worth R8,000 was bought to hand out as gifts or for functions; and
• His daughter was awarded a bursary by the school governing body and employed as a teacher’s assistant.

In addition to those allegations, there are questions surrounding the financing of a trip to Namibia, where he spoke with parents of current pupils (he’s clearly not a fan of Skype), free meals for his family, and questionable upgrades made to the school basement.

The principal lives in a flat in the school hostel with his family, where he pays just R1 850 a month, and upgrades to the flat made just before he moved in also form part of the investigation.

One thing that we know for sure – Naudé loves guns and his daughter is scoring big time:

In October last year, Naudé, who has an arsenal of weapons including three rifles, a shotgun, a pistol and a revolver, was instructed by the department to remove the firearms from his flat in the hostel.

In 2017, a year after he became principal, the school’s governing body awarded his daughter, Jeanri [above with her father], who was studying teaching, a R15,000 bursary, fuelling claims that Naudé may have influenced the decision. The school also employed her as an assistant teacher at a salary of R11,540 a month.

That’s the kind of nepotism we expect from Sun Valley Primary, not Hugenote Hoërskool.

Parents of pupils are understandably upset about Naudé’s spending, and the guns in the school hostel incident, but they are also up in arms about how his previous indiscretions regarding conduct with pupils and teachers garnered nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

The principal was issued with a final written warning in December 2017, after he pleaded guilty to three counts of improper conduct.

It’s not hard to see why that conduct would leave parents fuming:

Two of them stemmed from complaints made by two grade 10 pupils – a boy and a girl – who Naudé questioned after he was sent a cellphone photograph of them in a compromising position.

Questioning the girl alone in his office, he told her she was addicted to sex and he was certain she was sexually active, according to an affidavit she signed at the Bellville police station in Cape Town.

Naudé allegedly told the boy: “You are like my dog. If a bitch walks past then you just want to climb her because you can’t think of anything else.”

I don’t know how they do things in Wellington, but that’s the kind of approach you’d expect to see during the 1950s, not 2019.

The third complaint, made by a female teacher who has since left the school, is even more unprofessional:

She said Naudé asked her during a function after she was handed a piece of cake: “Just tell me, Miss, if a piece of cake stands up or is lying down, does it still taste the same?”

Well, that tells you a great deal about the man. Not sure I would want someone like this running the school my son or daughter attended.

Investigations are still ongoing.

[source:timeslive]