TrichardtFontein School Remains Closed: Who is in charge of Mpumalanga Education?

TrichardtFontein School Remains Closed: Who is in charge of Mpumalanga Education?

DA says it emerged on Tuesday 12 August, that approximately 200 learners from the Trichardfontein School in the Govan Mbeki Municipality locked out of their school for the past two weeks, after the Department of Education failed to pay rent to the landlord where the school built.

Its alleged that the department of education has not paid the farm owner rent since 2012 and owes him an approximate R3, 5 million, which has subsequently forced the land owner to approach a court of law to force the department to fulfil its financial obligations.

“Upon hearing about this very unfortunate incident, I called Hon MEC Mhaule to enquire whether the department was acting on this crisis.” Anthony Bernadie said.

Anthony Bernadie told BvunzaMutupo News that the MEC assured me that the department was addressing the matter and in fact stated that she had instructed the district on Friday to ensure all outstanding money paid.

“Despite this assurance, and despite a protest by the learners at the Provincial Government offices yesterday, the Trichardtfontein combined school remains closed today and based on information received, no payments have made to the land owner,” said Bernadie.

Bernadie told Bvunzamutupo News that DA simply cannot allow the constitutional rights of our learners to compromise by a dispute between the department and its landlords, because of the inability of the department to pay its debts.

“Yesterday MEC Mhaule you assured me the matter dealt with, today we saw the school remained closed and no payments have made, which begs the question, which is in charge of this department? Are your officials blatantly ignoring your political instructions and are they undermining your efforts to solve this problem or what exactly going on?

The DA urges you MEC, to take a firm stance on this matter, to ensure that the outstanding rent is paid with immediate effect, to ensure the school is immediately reopened, and that you take this matter a step further to investigate who is responsible for the non-payment, to hold those official accountable including those who ignored your instructions, and that measures be put in place to support the school and its learners in catching up on the lost education time.