Pretoria News – For an entire week, the Tshwane West Education District offices have been without electricity, compromising support to parents and schools. Workers have also been unable to go about their duties.
The district offices in Mabopane have been without power since Monday, leaving staff unable to provide the much-needed intervention during this time when some pupils were still without places in schools.
DA spokesperson for Education Khume Ramulifho made an oversight visit to the district offices on Thursday, where he found that the offices had been without power all week. He was told it was a regular occurrence.
“They are all just sitting there doing nothing,” Ramulifho said.
There was no alternative like a generator to make sure work got done during power failures, he said.
The city’s district offices have been inundated with thousands of parents looking for placement for their children since the beginning of the year, with the Gauteng Department of Education saying 58 000 pupils had not been placed just two days before schools re-opened.
The queues of parents did not stop with the opening of schools as parents continued to look for space.
Government officials blamed the rising need for space on migration into the city, among other reasons.
With the loss of power, the district has struggled to continue finding schools and placing pupils.
“You cannot have an entire week without electricity. There’s no work being done. I could see the facilities were not being looked after. It was dirty and there were papers everywhere. This points to a lack of leadership in terms of management of the facility,” Ramulifho said.
MEC Panyaza Lesufi had to visit the facility to find out what was going on, he said.
“As a political head he needs to go there and find out why there's been such a problem for the whole week. If this problem is a long-term issue then he needs to source an alternative form of power, such as a generator.”
Ramulifho said he did not know what caused the power outage and the workers speculated that it could be an issue of non-payment or problems with the wiring in the building.
“District offices must always be capacitated so that quality services are rendered to schools. Staff at this office have been reporting to work yet failing to perform their duties,” said Ramulifho.
A worker at the office, who asked to remain anonymous, said the building was old and he suspected old wiring was the reason behind the outage.
Departmental spokesperson Oupa Bodibe said they were investigating the cause and would comment after an investigation.