Pit latrines in Govan Mbeki municipality. A four year old child's body was found in a pit latrine. (Photo: Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
A four-year-old child has died in excrement, again.
The girl’s body was found in a pit toilet at a school in the Eastern Cape.
For more than a decade, civil society has tried to force Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga and her department to uphold the norms and standards that every child should attend a safe, quality school with adequate sanitation.
But she has fought it all the way. Or her department has simply failed to meet any deadline set by any court.
The state funds she has used to fight this could have ensured that the pit toilets several children have drowned in are eradicated, and lives are saved.
Imagine the fear experienced by a child as she drowns?
Imagine that, and then listen to Motshekga’s spokesperson say that the child did not die because the department failed to provide adequate sanitation. Elijah Mhlanga said the school was given upgrades in 2018, and it seemed the little girl decided to use a pit toilet for older children.
This was the response of the department, knowing full well pit toilets should not have been there for children of any age.
In 2018, after the death of five-year-old Lumka Mkweta in a pit toilet at a primary school in Bizana, President Cyril Ramaphosa launched the Sanitation Appropriate for Education campaign.
In his 2019 State of the Nation address, Ramaphosa said the government was “determined” to get rid of “inappropriate” sanitation within three years. That deadline has passed, and as experts tell us, a lack of transparency makes it difficult to “monitor construction and interrogate claims of progress”.
That the government is out of touch with the misery it has inflicted on citizens is no secret. The quickest way to change this would be for the president and cabinet (as part of their job requirements) and their families to use public transport and healthcare facilities from the moment they are sworn in.
The stench of impropriety consistently wafts around this government, which has become accustomed to providing excuse upon excuse for its failings, instead of simply doing what must be done.
On page three, we document how the Sunshine Hospital has had to close. A hospital used by those who cannot afford life-saving surgery.
It was disingenuously denied payment of hundreds of millions for treating accident victims by the head of the Road Accident Fund, who was previously known for earning almost R6 million annually at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa .
Fikile Mbalula, the minister responsible for both entities, has fixed neither and has sailed on to be the ANC’s secretary general.
Scandal, wrong upon wrong, can wear one down, and we are worn down. We risk becoming indifferent. We cannot surrender. Not to this.