An Eastern Cape school is reeling with shock following the death of a little boy who died after falling into a pit latrine at a school in Bizana.
Education Minister, Angie Motshekga, said on Thursday that the death of five-year-old Viwe Jali from the Luna Primary School in Bizana on Tuesday in such an undignified manner "is completely unacceptable and incredibly disturbing.
"Counselling services are being provided to the school, and a case has been opened with the local police station. Investigations are proceeding into the circumstances surrounding Jali's death," she said.
Minister Motshekga said the Department was doing everything in its capacity to address infrastructure backlogs in a timely manner by prioritising unsafe structures and those without decent sanitation, electricity and water. The Ministry holds bi-weekly meetings with Implementing Agents and the Infrastructure team at the Department to ensure that infrastructure targets are prioritised.
"Together with Provincial Education Departments the sector has made significant strides in addressing school infrastructure challenges but budget cuts pose a threat to the provision of much needed infrastructure resources," Motshekga said.
"Words cannot express the pain I personally feel at the loss of a young life in this horrific way. To know that as a sector we have not been able to address these infrasture issues fast enough, for a number of reasons, breaks my heart. When a tragedy like this occurs it makes us more resolute of the continued need for the Accelerated School Infrastructure initiative (ASIDI) so that we can continue to fast track these schools that are in desperate need of infrastructure and make them safe havens for our children," said Minister Motshekga.
She said currently 5 225 maintenance projects are under way around the country and the Eastern Cape had already exhausted its maintenance budget.
"The Department of Basic Education has introduced a 12% minimum budget for each province to be dedicated to maintenance. It took this step to compel provinces to set aside funding for maintenance because some provinces were not budgeting for it and letting schools become dilapidated over time".
Minister Motshekga said that the Accelerated School Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI) has delivered 191 schools to date, of those 141 have been in the Eastern Cape replacing inappropriate structures. "The initiative has also provided water to 666, sanitation to 453 and electricity to 372 sites around the country with the majority of these projects also being in the Eastern Cape. This excludes schools built by the provinces through their Education Infrastructure Grant."
She lamented the fact that "despite the progress made thus far more than R3.5 billion will be cut in the next 3 years on ASIDI which would create challenges when it comes to school infrastructure delivery. "The cuts were part of a government-wide reprioritisation of funds," Minister Motshekga said.
Meanwhile, DA MPL, Edmund van Vuuren, said that "the horrific drowning of a child in a latrine at the Luna Primary School in Mbizana on Tuesday must serve as a wake-up call to Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga and Education MEC Mandla Makupula to stop making excuses about budget constraints because they cannot spend the money."
"The ANC-led government must act now to sort out the infrastructure mess at schools in the Eastern Cape. This incident highlights the extent of our broken province and the urgent need to fix it," he said.
(Image: archive)
