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The Eastern Cape has some 836 schools that have been identified as containing asbestos material, potentially placing tens of thousands of children at risk.
This was revealed by the MEC for Education, Fundile Gade, in response to a question from DA MPL, Horatio Hendricks.
Gade said 1075 schools were assessed, and 836 were found to contain asbestos material.
He noted that it would cost a staggering R3.87 billion to eradicate, money which the Department does not have.
“The estimate is almost twice the allocation of the total Education Infrastructure Grant for three financial years,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hendricks said the Democratic Alliance would be conducting oversight inspections at some of the schools identified while calling for the Department to present a report and turnaround plan to the Education Portfolio Committee.
He said last year, in response to a parliamentary question from the DA, Gade had revealed that his department did not have an asbestos policy and had not determined the amount required to replace the asbestos structures.
Hendricks said the Department said it had no money to replace asbestos materials at schools, only doing so during running projects and where asbestos was identified.
“However, over the past five financial years MEC Gade's Department has returned over R1.2 billion in infrastructure funding to Treasury because it failed to spend the money,” Hendricks said.
