The Western Cape public works and education departments may sell off some state and school properties to raise money for a school-building initiative that could cost R500-million.
”The sale of excess and/or under-utilised school and education land presents a real opportunity for our wealthy schools to contribute to building a home for all in this province,” said provincial minister of public works Mcebisi Skwatsha at a media briefing on Thursday.
He said given the crisis in school accommodation in the Western Cape, and a lack of available funds to accelerate the school-building programme, the provincial government is looking at alternative means of generating funds to build new schools.
Skwatsha, flanked by provincial minister of education Cameron Dugmore, said since former Model C schools are located in advantaged residential areas, it follows that their excess land is ”inherently more valuable” than land in townships such as Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain.
Dugmore appealed to principals of Model C schools to come forward and help the provincial government, saying the proposal to sell state land to build schools is an ”opportunity for Model C schools to contribute to redress”.
Dugmore said the approximately R120-million allocated to the public works department to build schools is insufficient.
”We need a lot of money to correct the inequalities,” he said, alluding to the R500-million in capital requirements.
Dugmore said the government is considering ”incentivising” schools to sell under-utilised or excess land.
It was unclear at the briefing how many former Model C schools there are out of a total of 1 460 schools in the province.
He expressed concern that in the past schools had sold valuable land ”without one cent” going to the upliftment of poorer schools, and the possible perpetuation of this practice.
However, Dugmore emphasised that school facilities are managed by school governing bodies, which have to be consulted.
The deputy director general of public works, Richard Petersen, said the White Paper on the disposal of provincial properties sets out the relevant framework and guidelines.
”[It sets out] how we can optimise existing properties to address backlogs,” said Petersen.
Petersen, using the Jan van Riebeeck school in central Cape Town as an example, said tenders had been put out and the ”bids were better than expected”.
”If the disposal of properties occurs now, the returns will be quite high,” he said, with regard to Cape Town’s property boom and the prevailing market value of land. — Sapa