By Thabo Monyela
POLOKWANE- The Limpopo Department of Education hopes to completely flush out pit toilets in all Priority One schools by the end of May after it fails to meet the March 31st deadline.
LDoE through its spokesperson Mike Maringa said their failure to meet the deadline in providing schools with safe sanitation, was due to technical challenges faced by the implementing agents.
” We are monitoring all current projects and we hope to finalise them by the end of May,” Maringa said.
The learner members of the advocacy group, Equal Education (EE) marched to the Limpopo Department of Education in Polokwane on Tuesday, April 11 to demand an urgent relief of mobile toilets for all Priority One schools across the province.
EE facilitator Sibongile Teffo said it has been 10 years since the introduction of the school infrastructure law, and all the LDoE’s sanitation delivery deadlines of 2016 and 2020 have been missed.
Teffo further said they are saddened by the poor sanitation which they found at the Priority One schools such as Tutwana Primary and Seipone Secondary schools in Ga-Mashashane, where both schools are relying on plain pit toilets, which are not safe and pose a great danger to the learners.
“As long as these illegal pit toilets are still found in schools, children’s rights will continue to be violated. We cannot sit back while the LDoE continuously fails to meet the deadlines for school sanitation upgrades” she said.
However, the LDoE spokesperson dismissed the EE’s claims on the sanitation situation of Tutwana and Seipone schools, saying these schools have mobile toilets.
EE highlighted consistent poor spending, underspending, and irregular expenditure, as the reasons for the department’s failure to fully eradicate the pit toilets.
In the 2017/18 financial year, the LDoE incurred R957 million in irregular expenditure; R694 million in 2018/19; and R329 million in 2019/20.
In 2020/21, the LDoE had allocated R650 million towards providing 172 schools with proper toilets but by the end of the financial year, it had spent only R295 000 of this budget and only 31 schools had been provided with toilets.
