In 2016 the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) held its Taking Parliament to the People programme in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, East London, in the Eastern Cape province, from 14 to 18 November 2016. This followed pre-visits held in the Alfred Nzo District Municipality from 18 to 21 October 2016 – and the Content and Projects Task Teams’ visit to the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality from 10 to 14 October and from 31 October to 2 November 2016.
This year, various NCOP delegations have gone back to the respective districts and embarked on report-back sessions to assess the implementation of commitments made by the Departments of Education, Health, Social Development, and Public Works in 2016 during its Taking Parliament to the People programme in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality.
The theme of this year’s report-back session: “Making Your Future Better, Learning from Madiba: Following Up On Our Commitments”, which commemorates Mandela’s centenary, provides a fitting context of this undertaking which seeks to uphold the “better life for all” commitments that characterised Mandela presidential tenure. And that has become the cornerstone of South African government’s social pact.
One of the delegations, comprising of Ms Tsapane Mampuru, Mr Mntomuhle Khawula, Mr Boingotlo Nthebe and Ms Brenda Mathevula, went to visit uMzimvubu Local Municipality to assess the state of delivery in this area. And during their briefing with various stakeholders, they pronounced unequivocally that they were there to ensure that those government departments and entities which made commitments in 2016, account. “It is now the time to be held accountable for your commitments. And where progress has not been made, to explain to us why. What made you not to achieve what you promised to deliver?”
Ms Mampuru added: “This time around we don’t need narratives, we want truthful reporting that is straight to the point. If you know that you have not delivered on certain areas, please be truthful and say so and explain why. And we will determine whether your reasons for not delivering are reasonable or not.”
Before we came here we sent our research team to assess the state of delivery and the feedback we got was that much more still need to be done, said Mr Nthebe. “According to the report there is seemingly a lack of effective and efficient coordination of various cross-cutting responsibilities of various government departments and entities. We are here to verify that.”
We don’t want cover-ups, that won’t help. Let’s all respond to what we know, said Ms Mampuru. “We are saying all this because local government is where everything happens. And we are to instil the critical position this tier of government occupies in dispensing services to our people. That is our concern. That is what brought us here.”
The delegation started off its oversight visit at Nzululwazi Secondary School, one of the best performing schools that had a high learner pregnancy rate in the province. And this has affected the outputs of its matric results ever since.
The Alfred Nzo District Health Department has since intervened and brought an integrated comprehensive health package that focused on family planning, sex education, mentors and has brought the Social Development Department on board to ensure that the issue of learner pregnancies is curbed. “We had 88% of learner pregnancies in 2016, but now that number has been reduced to 6%,” said the Director of Human Resources in the District Health Department, Ms Yoliswa Ngcobo.
So successful was their intervention programme that it has now become a benchmark for a roll-out of a national pilot project and has received attention from international research institutions that want to adopt it as a model to deal with learner pregnancies in their respective countries, said Ms Ngcobo.
Despite these inroads, concerns over lack of proper coordination and implementation of deliverables such as water and sanitation, poor conditions of the access road to the school, the absence of a library and late delivery of top-up text books persist, said Mr Nthebe. “These are some of the issues that have led to a decline in the school’s passing rate from 97% in 2015 to 51% in 2017. And we want to know what interventions are going to be made to turn this tide?”
The Principal of the School, Mr Siphamandla Makhawula, said the pregnancy crisis was dealt with, and they have received the state-of-the-art telematics and smart classrooms - thanks to the NCOP intervention in 2016. They went back to the drawing board and devised a plan to rediscover their winning formula.
The visit to Emthonjeni Primary School, a dilapidated school that lacks even the bare necessities to facilitate learning and teaching, nearly brought Ms Mampuru to tears. And it has been declared one of the inappropriate schools in the district. When asked by the NCOP delegation what was their plans about the school, one of the Managers of Infrastructure Development in the District, Mr Ntsikelelo Lingani, said it was due for proper upgrade in April, but the Chief District Director of Education, Mr Mawethu Mthyida, seemed to contradict that. He explained that the school was not on the list of schools due for upgrade.
When Members complained that they were there in 2016 and raised the issue of the inappropriate condition of the school and why it was not yet on the list of schools due for upgrade, the Deputy Director of Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign, Mr Jake Tladi, admitted that he was embarrassed by what he saw and committed himself to ensure that something is done to make sure that there was a proper culture of learning and teaching at the school.
“I don’t know what kind of future we envisage for our kids when they are subjected to such conditions,” said Ms Mampuru. She added: “Let’s do what we are hired to do. Let’s not short-change our children. They look upon us to alleviate their lives.”
Justice Sodladla, an Early Childhood Development (ECD) facility, was also faced with similar conditions as that of Emthonjeni. It is one of the back of the beyond ECDs that Members have encountered. The structure looked like it could fall at any time. It had no furniture, no toys for kids’ stimulation and no proper toilets. Upon incisive interrogation by the NCOP delegation, the Speaker of uMzimvubu Local Municipality, Mr Sobane Mnukwa, reassured the delegation that he would make sure that the crèche is attended to and is provided with basic necessities and is fully functional.
These are similar challenges faced by other ECDs, what differs is the degree of their severity.
To solve the issue of water and sanitation, which cropped up in each and every site visited, the municipality must have a list of schools that are not connected to the water grid, said Mr Khawula, after it became apparent that the municipality and departments were not taking any direct responsibility on the matter. After their inspection of toilets at Emthonjeni, the NCOP delegation instructed that they should be demolished because they are disastrous. “No human, let alone the children, should be subjected to that. “Let’s deal with this issue to ensure that kids get water and proper sanitation to restore their dignity. That is non-negotiable.”
The visit to Makaula Secondary School, one of the well-performing boarding schools in the Eastern Cape, was the most positive of the visits thus far. Some of the issues that were identified in 2016 were either implemented or have a projected time frame for implementation.
But the drug abuse issue which engulfed it since the NCOP delegation’s visit in 2016 has not yet been properly addressed. According to Mr Nthebe, it was alleged that there was a female ambulance driver who suppled pupils at school with drugs. He asked the Director of Human Resources, Ms Ngcobo, how far was the case of this alleged culprit? To the delegation’s surprise, Ms Ngcobo said she has never heard of this before, it was news to her. She nonetheless promised that she would investigate it and report back to the delegation within a month. Again, there is a need for effective and efficient coordination among all stakeholder departments on this matter to ensure that we don’t allow a societal matter to affect the running of school. “There is little or nothing that the school can do about this matter. Departments that are related to this matter such as Police, Health and Social Development must work together to curb this crisis.”
By Abel Mputing
15 March 2018
Arrange a tour