THEY came sneaking into the school in the early hours of the morning, probably with a bakkie or a truck to load the loot they were going to steal.
Their target was the newly built R105million Menzi Primary School in Tsakane.
The school had only been opened the previous week with much fanfare as MEC of Education Panyaza Lesufi begged the pupils not to destroy their new school.
“Don’t destroy the school. Don’t bang the doors. It is your school. If you don’t have a geyser at home, don’t take the geyser from the school.”
He also pleaded with the community to protect it.
“I am pleading with you to protect these schools. If you see someone vandalising these schools, report them to the police,” said Lesufi.
However, none of these words mattered to the robbers as they made their way to the patrollers guarding the school in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
They tied up the patrollers, then made their way to the administration block, broke the main door, went in and broke the second door.
After accessing the building, they went to the first vault. It is believed they fiddled with it until it opened.
They got inside then took all the keys and laptops kept there.
From there, they used the keys they got from the first vault to open the second one where they took computers and more laptops.
After cleaning out the second vault, they locked the patrollers inside and went to the third vault which is the server room.
There, they took CCTV’s hard drives.
The last thing they took were 185 tablets that were in the IT Support room.
They also took desktop computers, data projectors, a plasma TV and R500.
The patrollers were later able to get out of building through the ceiling.
There had been concerns regarding security at the school, especially in light of the fact there was very expensive equipment there.
Department spokesperson Steve Mabona said there was armed security during construction of the school.
When the school was completed, they left and the Gauteng Department of Community Safety provided patrollers who are also doing Community Policing Forum work in the area.
Although the school also had CCTV cameras, they have now been rendered useless.
“The TV cameras are there but there is no data,” Mabona said.
Asked how the robbers might
have known which vault had keys to the other vaults, Mabona said:
“It looks like an inside job.”
He said police were busy with investigations but at the moment the Grade 7s at the schools were feeling the impact of the robbery. “They accessed their lessons on their tablets. This is a drawback,” he said.