Noordgesig Primary School continues to be a point of debate between Democratic Alliance (DA) Member of Provincial Legislature (MPL) Khume Ramulifho and education MEC Panyaza Lesufi.
Ramulifho who is shadow MEC for education in the province visited Noordgesig on Wednesday in an effort to check if work to rebuild the school has started.
“The department tabled in its quarterly report last year, recognising the project was “completed” in August 2015, however not a single brick was delivered to the school.
“Today, we are back at the very same place we started. I am extremely disappointed in the MEC for not keeping his promise,” said Ramulifho.
R17.8 million was allocated in 2014 to renovate the school but the Department of Education halted the project opting for a complete rebuild.
Early this year, Finance MEC Barbara Creecy allocated the Department of Education R2.6 billion for infrastructure related projects and R90 million was set aside for the project to rebuild Noordgesig primary.
Ramulifho has credited the appalling situation at the school as contributing to a poor teaching and learning environment which has become a norm at Noordgesig primary.
“We are fast approaching the seventh year of “renovations” at this school.
“Thousands of pupils’ education has been disrupted due to the lack of urgency to have the school completely renovated,” said Ramulifho.
The Department of Education responded by releasing a statement claiming that neither the MEC nor the department was informed of the visit to the school by Ramulifho.
On behalf of the Department of Education, Oupa Bodibe said, “The department plans to replace the current asbestos school with a brick and mortar school.
“As such, the project relates to a school rebuild rather than renovation so as to replace inappropriate schools built with inappropriate materials.
“Given the scope of the project to replace a school made of asbestos, it was prudent to cancel the planned renovations that would have cost R17 million.”
He agreed that the project to rebuild the school was scheduled to start this month but has been delayed for a number of reasons.
“The pricing that we received was above the R90m allocated budget and the department had to send the costing back to the implementing agency for review.
“We are currently working with the agency to reduce the scope of work to an amount that is within the allocated budget. As soon as this is done, the process will commence appointing a contractor,” said Bodibe.
He ended by saying that his department remains committed to rebuilding the school in the current financial year.
