It is the year 2023 and we are still talking about pit toilets, and even worse, the death of a four-year-old whose body was discovered in a pit toilet at Mcwangele Junior Secondary School.
As if the horror of this was not already too much to bear, we have to put up with politicians bickering and trying to score cheap political points on this matter.
Little Langalam Viki’s body was discovered on March 6, a day after she was reported missing.
Though foul play is suspected, the family is demanding answers as they grieve their daughter.
On Wednesday, basic education minister Angie Motshekga and DA member Baxolile Nodada became embroiled in a heated exchange about her death.
The meeting degenerated into a session where insults were hurled at each other, and in the end there were no answers for the parents who are mourning their child.
Apart from the noise and political posturing, at the heart of the problem the old-age issue of schools that are still using pit latrines. This continues to be this democratic government’s biggest embarrassment.
It is not only a matter of hygiene. It impedes on the dignity of those forced to use them and, as we have come to know, it has become a matter of life and death.
Our hope is that we can get to a point — by no later than the end of 2023 — where pit latrines are a thing of the past in schools.
And there can be no excuse about not having the budget to build flushing toilets, not when tens of millions of rand meant for infrastructure in schools is returned to the National Treasury because it was not used.
Education officials, particularly in the Eastern Cape, should hang their heads in shame.
HeraldLIVE