Panyaza Lesufi handed over the newly built Mayibuye Primary School in Tembisa where he said the province used to unveil a school each month but that stalled because of covid19 and rogue contractors among others.
“MEC Maile, MEC Matome Chiloance we did it before we can do it now. at one stage in Gauteng we were opening a new school every month, we must go back there and open a new school every month in Gauteng. We must have more schools than any other province in our country,” said Lesufi to his colleagues.
The Premier said the more than two years of lockdown when the country was dealing with covid19 also led to disruption of planned and ongoing projects.
“Obviously we were hit by covid for almost two and half years, it disrupted our planning and it also disrupted our budget cycle. Majority of schools that are not finished are schools that we started around that period,” said Lesufi.
“We have contractors that don’t take the work that we give them seriously especially work that is in previously disadvantaged communities, they drag their feet, don’t execute. We also have the so-called business forums who disrupt projects because they need a certain portion of the business but now that we have learned from the experiences we are of the view that we can press the reset button and start again, I mean this is the second school that we are opening in two months so we will go back there, we just need to open a new school every month in Gauteng,” said Lesufi.
Another school was unveiled in Ga-Rankuwa, North of Pretoria in January.