A court ruling this month gave the minister of basic education and Limpopo’s education MEC, Polly Boshielo, 90 days to come up with detailed plans to eradicate pit toilets in some 1 500 rural schools across the province. But after decades of promises, plans and non-implementation, organised agriculture has little hope that its communities will see a sudden change.
The ruling made by judge Gerrit Muller on Friday, 17 September followed a six-year legal battle to ensure that the education department eradicates pit toilets. This, after the tragic death of Michael Komape, who had drowned in a pit toilet at Mahlodumela Primary School in Chebeng Village, Polokwane, on 20 January 2014.
Komape was five years old.
Responding to questions posed by Food For Mzansi, education spokesperson Tidimalo Chuene tells Food For Mzansi that the department has taken note of the judgement, adding that the department agrees that it is obliged to comply with the court ruling.
“At this stage there is not much that we can say. However, executive management of the department is scheduled to deliberate on the judgement soon. We therefore cannot give comment before then.”
Failures impact the farming sector
Organised agriculture says that such basic service issues – if not addressed swiftly – will continue to hold a negative impact for the farming sector and rural areas.
Deidre Carter, chief executive officer of Agri Limpopo, says it is unacceptable that schools in rural areas still lack adequate toilet and sanitation facilities. The farming sector, rural service delivery (be it good, indifferent or bad) and the well-being of rural communities are all inextricably linked to one another, Carter says.
“The impact of poor and dysfunctional governmental service delivery, as recently highlighted in the media, on the proper and productive functioning of the farming and agro-processing sectors is of considerable concern to our sector,” she adds.
“That we are still faced with schools in our rural areas that lack adequate toilet and sanitation facilities is frankly unconscionable at the best of times.”
This, she points out, is especially bad given the current Covid-19 pandemic.
According to Carter, efforts to escalate the eradication of pit latrines and to provide proper sanitation at rural schools were publicly announced as a consequence of the Covid-19 outbreak. Yet the situation remains unchanged.
“This ongoing crisis, despite numerous initiatives over more than two decades, sadly points to failures in governance.
“These failures impact not only on the health and welfare of rural scholars and their families, but on the viability of our farming sector and our rural areas as a whole.”
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