By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Department of Basic Education (DBE) Minister Angie Motshekga has committed to fast-tracking the eradication of pit latrines in schools accross the country.
This comes in light of the deaths of a primary school learners Langalam Viki and Lumka Mketwa who drowned in a pit toilet in the Eastern Cape.
Motshekga used the platform to give clarity on circumstances relating to leaners deaths.
Speaking on Sunday morning during a media briefing, Motshekga said that when tragedies like these occurred, the government must accelerate providing infrastructure, especially in areas where it was needed, to ensure pupils were safe in schools.
At the school at which Lumka died, there was new, proper sanitation. She didn’t die because we had not, as the government replaced old toilets. What happened is that there were old toilets which unfortunately had not been demolished, far away from the school, and that’s where she drowned.
She added that maybe the question was why those toilets were not demolished.
“But the fact of the matter is that there were new toilets at the school where Lumka died,” the minister said, and added that this was also the case for Langalam.
“The fact of the matter is we have provided new South African national standard approved infrastructure and we have been explaining this. This means that the school had new toilets. She was not found in the pit latrine, she was found behind [the pit toilet].”
Motshekga said she did not want to absolve the government from responsibility, because it owed justice to Langalam, Lumka and the nation.
She added that the department had identified 3398 schools that were lacking in infrastructure.
“Since that time, we have delivered 2478 projects to schools across the country. I would like members of the media to bear in mind that, during this period, we had the Covid-19 pandemic which forced the lock-down of the country and significantly impacted implementation on the ground,” she said.
Motshekga further highlighted that when President Cyril Ramaphosa launched the Sanitation Appropriate For Education (SAFE) initiative to tackle infrastructure issues in schools, he also called on the private sector to join hands and work with the government.
“Indeed, out of the number of completed projects, 184 were allocated to donors of which 117 have been completed,” she said.
According to Motshekga: “Since the launch of Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI), the government has delivered 315 entire schools out of a target of 331, 317 electrification projects, 1259 water projects and, to come back to the specific subject at hand, all 1 053 planned sanitation projects.”
Meanwhile the Democratic Alliance (DA) said it is clear that neither that Motshekga, nor her Department (DBE) is willing to accept responsibility for the danger unsafe pit toilets still pose to learners at schools across the country.
In a statement, the opposition party said, had Minister Motshekga visited the school, as the DA had done, she might have known that firstly, the toilets where Langalam was found, is the only ones available at that school. And secondly, that if those toilets conformed to the Norms and Standards, it is high time that the standards are amended as no human should have to suffer the indignity of such facilities.
While the DA welcomes the police investigation into the circumstances of her death, we will not allow the Department to use it as a diversion from its own failings at Mcwangele JSS, added the DA.
During the briefing, the DBE Director-General, Mathanzima Mweli, blamed slow rollout of appropriate and safe infrastructure on the building industry’s inability to move with greater speed.