The Select Committee on Appropriations is calling for urgent and coordinated efforts to eradicate pit latrines in the country.
This after several learners lost their lives in pit latrines due to inadequate school infrastructures.
The committee’s remarks come after it received a briefing from National Treasury and expressed concern by the recent amalgamation of several conditional grants, including those earmarked for school backlogs, considering the heartbreaking incidents of children losing their lives in pit latrines due to inadequate school infrastructure.
“Members of the committee emphasised the immediate necessity for coordinated efforts to eradicate pit latrines.
They also underscored the need for a dedicated fund to tackle school infrastructure deficiencies, despite the 2024 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) proposing the amalgamation of various conditional grants into an overarching education infrastructure grant.
The committee was also alarmed by the R2 billion underspending reported by local government, as noted in the current MTBPS,” said committee Chairperson, Tidimalo Legwase.
Legwase highlighted that they also sought clarity on the criteria for allocating additional funds for the disaster recovery grant and the municipal systems improvement grant, “given the diverse challenges municipalities face in terms of economic conditions, population dynamics and developmental frameworks.”
Meanwhile, in a recent oral reply in parliament, Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube, said the department is on track to eradicate pit latrines by the end of March next year.
“I have made this a priority of the seventh administration to make sure we eradicate all pit toilets by the end of this financial year.
We know the existence of pit toilets is not only a danger to our learners but also is an issue of dignity.
The continued existence of these toilets poses a significant risk to learners’ health and safety and therefore requires action,” said Gwarube.
Moreover, a report compiled in 1997 had indicated there were 27 864 schools and of those 278 had bucket toilets.
A department audit in 2018 found that there were unsafe pit toilets and 4 700 of them that were not successfully eradicated.
According to Gwarube, the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal have the highest number of schools with pit toilets in the country, 405 in the Eastern Cape, 170 in KwaZulu-Natal, followed by 40 in Mpumalanga and 37 in Limpopo.
