The Select Committee on Education, Sciences and the Creative Industries has called on the Eastern Cape Department of Education to respond to the shocking news of half-a-billion-rands infrastructure grant being withheld by the National Treasury.
The Chairperson of the committee, Mr Makhi Feni, said the news was a setback for the province, and the timing is bad because it happens when the Eastern Cape delegation of the permanent delegates to the National Council of Provinces is to be troubled by this news.
“The Eastern Cape Provincial Department of Education needs to explain this challenge as it is the most affected by infrastructure needs. This is the time for honesty and reflection. The Eastern Cape is the last province to lose this amount of money sadly for the reasons that the National Treasury has alluded to,” said Mr Feni.
The committee visited schools in the Amathole West District and in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, in Gqeberha last month where serious infrastructure challenges were identified. The sad situation of the infrastructure needs was no better pronounced than at Greenville Primary in Bethelsdorp, in Gqeberha.
Mr Feni said what the National Treasury is saying has revealed the reasons behind a situation where 100% of the infrastructure budget would be spent in the second quarter, when in fact a mere 10% of performance had been achieved.
“The department should motivate to Treasury for the money to be released and not hide their heads into the sand. If help is required, they should indicate as such so that the national Department of Basic Education takes care of the provincial affairs. The province did not need this news, and the timing is bad.”
The committee will demand accountability and will hold the Eastern Cape Department of Education to the highest standard of accountability particularly around the issues of infrastructure.
The Eastern Cape’s permanent delegates to the NCOP will from tomorrow be in the OR Tambo District on the Provincial Week Programme to, among other things, assess service delivery in the municipalities in the district.
Africa Fact: The Malian city of Timbuktu had a 14th century population of 115,000 – 5 times larger than mediaeval London. Mansa Musa,
built the Djinguerebere Mosque in the fourteenth century. There was the University Mosque in which 25,000 students studied and the Oratory of Sidi Yayia. There were over 150 Koran schools in which 20,000 children were instructed. London, by contrast, had a total 14th century population of 20,000 people.
Africa Fact: National Geographic recently described Timbuktu as the Paris of the mediaeval world, on account of its intellectual culture.
According to Professor Henry Louis Gates, 25,000 university students studied there.
Troublemasher
Van der Merwe is approached by SANRAL one day who want to build a new highway through his donkey farm. Van is really concerned with how his donkeys can get from one side of the farm to the other without having to cross the highway and risk being injured or killed. He is promised that they will build bridges the highway so that his donkeys can cross under the highway. Van agrees and gives them the go-ahead.
The highway is built and a year later the same rep goes to the farm to go see how Van and his donkeys are. He eventually finds Van under one of these bridges chipping away at the roof of the tunnel with a hammer and chisel.
\”Mnr Van de Merwe, what are you doing damaging the highway bridge?\”
Sprinkle Lovenuts
Sudan: You have two cows. The southern one ran away because it contains more beef.