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The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes the announcement by the Minister of Basic Education, the DA’s Siviwe Gwarube, that the Department has achieved 100% completion of all school sanitation projects identified through the 2018 Sanitation Appropriate for Education Initiative audit.

All 3,372 schools identified through that audit have now been provided with safe and appropriate sanitation facilities.

More than 3 million learners and 48,000 educators have benefited from safer, healthier and more dignified school environments.

This is a significant national milestone, completed under Minister Gwarube’s leadership.

It is also a reminder of the terrible human cost of decades of neglect.

Children such as Michael Komape, Lumka Mkhethwa and Langalam Viki lost their lives because unsafe sanitation was allowed to remain in South African schools.

Safe toilets should never have been regarded as an ambitious policy goal, but are the minimum that every child deserves.

For years, the DA used parliamentary oversight, public campaigns, petitions and engagement with human-rights institutions to place sustained pressure on government to eradicate unsafe school sanitation.

When Minister Gwarube assumed office, the programme was not yet complete. She made it clear that the remaining projects had to be concluded and that learners could not continue waiting for the dignity and safety they had been promised.

The completion of the 2018 SAFE backlog demonstrates what can be achieved when government is focused on delivery, accountability and measurable outcomes.

The completion of this specific backlog does not, however, mean that every unsafe pit toilet in South Africa has been removed or replaced. Some schools may have been omitted from the original audit, others may have developed new sanitation challenges since 2018, and in some cases old pit structures may still remain on school premises even where new facilities have been provided.

The DA calls on all provincial education departments to urgently identify and locate schools with remaining sanitation challenges, and to provide clear plans and timelines for addressing them, with a specific focus on the removal and replacement of unsafe pit latrine toilets.

Provincial departments must also ensure that the new facilities are properly maintained so that no school is allowed to fall back into unsafe and undignified conditions.

South Africa continues to face a school infrastructure backlog exceeding R120 billion. The work of providing classrooms, laboratories, libraries, fencing and other essential infrastructure must therefore continue.

Minister Gwarube inherited an unfinished programme and ensured that the remaining 2018 SAFE Initiative backlog was brought to completion, restoring dignity and safety to millions of learners and thousands of educators.

This is what accountable government and focused political leadership can deliver.

Issued by: Desiree van der Walt MP - DA Spokesperson on Basic Education