ActionSA will give the Gauteng Education MEC Matome Chiloane seven days to address the community of Mayibuye, Tembisa, about the delayed opening of the R85 million Mayibuye Primary School in the community which was reportedly built on a wetland, or the party will bring the community to his office in the Johannesburg central business district.
When I, alongside ActionSA City of Ekurhuleni caucus leader Tlhogi Moseki and members of the Ekurhuleni caucus and region visited the incomplete Mayibuye Primary School – which was set to have already opened in 2017 – on Thursday morning, we found that the school which was overgrown with grass, while infrastructure has started to decay.
The visit formed part of ActionSA’s public engagement campaign ahead of president Cyril Ramaphosa’s State Of the Nation (SONA) address on 9 February where we engage with South Africans about the biggest issues facing the nation, and ask them for solutions on how to fix the country.
Activists from the Mayibuye Youth Activists movement, who joined us on the visit and have been calling on the Gauteng government for years to open the school, indicated that the school had been built on a wetland which made it hazardous for pupils to attend, and that infrastructure at the school has slowly been carried away by thieves.
The Mayibuye Youth Activists movement indicated that because the school’s opening has been delayed, some of the 1,200 pupils which would have been accommodated in the school have been forced to go to a nearby makeshift school which has mobile classrooms and is overcrowded.
The R85-million Mayibuye Primary School is standing completely empty and amounts to a complete waste of money by the Gauteng Education department, and we will therefore write to Gauteng Education MEC Matome Chiloane to visit Mayibuye Primary School in seven days or we will bring the community to him to address them on the issue.
For too long, the Gauteng government has gotten away with fruitless and wasteful expenditures such as Mayibuye Primary School without keeping officials accountable, or accounting to communities for the mistakes that were made.
ActionSA vows to keep pressure on the Gauteng Education Department to account for Mayibuye Primary School’s delays and to provide answers to the community to ensure that they have access to quality education.
ActionSA believes that quality education is South Africa’s best hope of creating a more equitable and pro sperous society.The situation at Mayibuye Primary School is only one of hundreds of cases where failed policy implementation, poor management and general incompetence mean that access to education does not translate to access to quality education for our communities.
Mayibuye Primary School: ActionSA gives Gauteng Education MEC 7 days to address community, or we’ll take the fight to him