Cape Town - A report presented to Parliament's portfolio committee on basic education has painted a worrying picture of the state of sanitation at rural schools such as the Eastern Cape and Limpopo.
The Limpopo sanitation report was prepared by Section27, which sampled 86 schools and found:
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33 schools with plain pit toilets,
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10 schools with new sanitation and the old pit toilets that have not been demolished,
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35 schools with inadequate toilets,
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3 schools with toilets that are not fit for purpose or not disability friendly and
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11 schools with poorly maintained toilets.
Samantha Brener, an attorney at Section27 said: “These schools need urgent sanitation replacements. In addition to the existence of pit latrines the conditions of these toilets are not great. As we have alluded to the presentation there are serious problems that have to be addressed.
Brener made several recommendations to the committee among those recommendations is the urgent need for an effective plan for school sanitation in Limpopo which includes timelines, budget plans and interim solutions for the most urgent cases.
“We understand budget-wise times are hard but there is money available for Limpopo. There are huge amounts of money that could be recovered and targeted to sanitation at schools,” she said.
In the 2017/2018 financial year, Limpopo’s education department reported a R194 million wasteful and irregular expenditure which has increased by R13 million from the year before.
But MP’s from the ruling party dismissed the organisation’s report and instead questioned why their report was not focused on other provinces.
ANC MP Patamedi Ronald Moroatshehla said: “My question for the organisation whether they are politically aligned and who funds them.”
DA MP Désirée Van Der Walt said the Limpopo education department has to come to the committee to explain themselves.