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Today, the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng conducted oversight inspection at the old and new Mayibuye Primary School in Tembisa. We were appalled to discover that Grades 2 and 5 learners only attend schooling for 5 days a month due to severe overcrowding at the old school.

Even though there is a rotational learning and teaching system, the number of learners in classrooms remains high, limiting the number of schooling days for certain grades.

While the primary school normally capacitates 1200 learners, they currently accommodate 1891 learners.

The school is overcrowded and in dire need of additional mobile classrooms, however there is no space to build such classrooms.

The current container classrooms are also old and dilapidated, with some having broken holes in the floor, causing a danger for both learners and teachers. We were also informed that one of the teachers has been injured as a result.

The ablution facilities are not adequate to accommodate the number of learners and educators. 1891 learners are sharing six toilets, while 85 members of staff are also sharing six toilets.

The construction of the new brick and mortar school began in 2017 and to date is still incomplete and on hold.

According to the Gauteng MEC for Infrastructure Development and Property Management (DID), Tasneem Motara, replying to my questions the school will be handed over when the construction is completed. The project is on hold awaiting the allocation of the required additional funds.

The initial budget for the new school was R88 823 180,67 and the DID has spent R 86 258 053,62 so far and is still in need of additional funds to be allocated to complete the project.

Poor implementation of this school project is costing taxpayers more money than budgeted for. It is estimated that they need more than R36 million to complete the project.

The new school is also built on top of the sewer system which clearly indicates a lack of proper planning and consultation from the local municipality by DID.

The state of the new school is terrible and has been abandoned, with the pavements full of weeds and the grass left to grow, while three toilet doors have been stolen.

The longer this school remains unoccupied, the sooner it will turn into a white elephant and further become a target for vandalism, theft, and burglary.

It is completely unacceptable for learners to only attend schooling for 5 days a month while other grades at the same school are attending for two weeks a month.

The DA calls on the Gauteng MEC for Education, Panyaza Lesufi to urgently intervene at the Mayibuye Primary School to ensure that the environment is conducive for learning and teaching, and that all grades are given equal time to attend school.

We also call on both the DID and the Department of Education to speed up the process of completing this school so that the learners can be moved to a proper conducive environment for schooling.