DBE says it has made ’great strides’ to get rid of pit toilets

The Department of Basic Education has said it is making strides to get rid of pit toilets, despite the Limpopo court battle aimed at getting rid of pit toilets in all Limpopo schools. File Picture:Dumisani Dube.

The Department of Basic Education has said it is making strides to get rid of pit toilets, despite the Limpopo court battle aimed at getting rid of pit toilets in all Limpopo schools. File Picture:Dumisani Dube.

Published Aug 10, 2021

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Johannesburg - The Department of Basic Education (DBE) has said it is making strides to get rid of pit toilets, despite the Limpopo court battle aimed at getting rid of pit toilets in all Limpopo schools.

On Friday, judgment was reserved in the high court battle of education advocacy group Section 27 and Equal Education to force the DBE to eradicate pit toilets in all Limpopo schools. The case is the continuation of a case heard in the Limpopo division of the high court in 2018 in which it ordered the Limpopo Department of Education and DBE to develop a plan to eradicate pit toilets at Limpopo schools.

The DBE said on Thursday that it has made “great strides” in efforts to replace pit toilets through the Sanitation Appropriate for Education (Safe) Initiative.

The department said the original number of schools with pit toilets in 2018 was 3 898. This decreased to 2 753 after site assessments. According to the DBE, about 989 schools were addressed under the Safe programme. About 130 are covered through donation and partnership funding, 69 of those have already had their toilets replaced and 66 other schools are covered under the Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative programme and have been completed.

A total of 793 are covered by the provincial education departments, of which 384 projects have been completed. The department added that about 1 026 schools have been allocated to implementing agents.

About 392 schools have been allocated to the Development Bank of Southern Africa, of which 189 have been completed and 659 are being handled by the National Education Collaboration Trust and only 12 have been completed.

The Mvula Trust is handling 632 schools and 183 projects have been completed, and the Coega Development Corporation will be handling 81 school projects. As of August 3, the reported expenditure on Safe was R312 439 764. The DBE said it reports regularly to the Presidency on the work done to replace pit toilets and will continue to do so until the toilets are eradicated. Minister Angie Motshekga has since February put in place weekly accountability sessions with director-general Hubert Mathanzima Mweli and the infrastructure branch at the DBE where progress reports are presented.

The Star

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