DA MP Wilmot James says the Basic Education Department, its Eastern Cape counterpart and the OR Tambo district municipality are in breach of a high court ruling that ordered the urgent upgrading of seven mud-built schools in the province.
James is liaising with the Centre for Child Law at the University of Pretoria about returning to the Bisho High Court for an order compelling the government to take action.
“They are in contempt of court. The temporary measures are not in place… They are very slow. It’s not financial,” said James on Monday.
“It’s back to court in order to issue an order to hurry up… The law is one device to get things done.”
According to the court order, all temporary improvements, valued at R84 million, should have been completed so that work on the new schools could begin on May 31.
The completion date was set for May 1, 2012.
After a visit to three of the seven schools, James said while the three schools received four temporary classrooms and fencing, still outstanding were adequate ablution facilities, water tanks, electricity, desks and chairs.
James said he was not given reasons for the delay in carrying out the temporary measures and the start of construction, but said that this could involve tender processes that were taking longer than expected.
A basic education media liaison official said on Monday “certain things needed to be done” before building could start, but “the money is there, the team is there”.
However, an undertaking to provide details within 30 minutes did not materialise. The official’s phone remained unanswered and messages were not responded to.
Education in the Eastern Cape has been in the spotlight since the start of the year when it emerged that school nutrition and pupil transport programmes had been halted and about 3 000 temporary teachers sacked due to a lack of funds.
A team from the National Basic Education Department was sent to assess the situation and in March the national government announced it was invoking section 100 of the constitution to intervene.
The section allows the national government to step in “when a province cannot or does not fulfil an executive obligation”. At a post-cabinet briefing two weeks ago, it was announced that the school nutrition and scholar transport programmes in the province were running again.
On June 1, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said that R420m would be spent this year to fix Eastern Cape mud schools, with R280m set aside for other provinces.
“The first batch of mud schools has been identified and costed. With regards to basic services, on sanitation we are looking at 354 schools, providing water to 188 schools and electricity to 231 schools, across all provinces. The time line for the completion of all projects is March 31, 2012,” she said.
Mud schools in the Eastern Cape have been a focus of the government since the beginning of the year.
The news of the high court order over the seven mud schools coincided with a week of ministerial briefings at Parliament. Both the public works and basic education ministries promised mud schools would be eradicated - and that schools with inadequate infrastructure would be fixed. - Cape Argus