MPUMALANGA education MEC, Craig Padayachee, failed to attend a meeting on Thursday to address the locking out of over 1 000 rural children from primary school.
The children of Ndlaphu Primary School near Nelspruit have not been able to attend class since Monday and matters grew worse on Wednesday when the gates were welded shut.
A sub-contractor is holding the school to ransom in order to force the department to pay an outstanding bill of R1,3 million for construction work at the school dating back to 1998.
Alarmed at the impact on the children, the local chief, Chief Daantjie Sicelo Nkosi, called for an urgent meeting to be held on Thursday morning at the Daanjtie tribal authority offices.
On Wednesday, education spokesman, Peter Maminza, confirmed Padayachee would attend the meeting, but on Thursday said the MEC did not go because he had not received a formal invitation.
Manager of the Nelspruit education district, Dr CG Shube, said on Thursday that he was unaware of the problem at the school.
He said he would not meet with the chief either and that the Tender Board should settle the matter.
Padayachee’s office laid charges of the illegal obstruction of learning and unlawful closure of a public institution against the sub-contractor, Symeon Sibiya of Zimele Silver Construction, on Wednesday.
The department also suspended the principal for not laying the charges herself, as instructed.
Sibiya has not been arrested yet and threatened to weld shut security gates on the school doors if the matter was not resolved on Friday.
— African Eye News Service, May 19, 2000.