Lesufi made the promise last year in July during his tour of Diepsloot. Parents ululated and cheered when the MEC publicly vowed to deliver a school by 21 July last year. This promise was made in the presence of the Fourways Review news crew.
Read Diepsloot parents frantic to register children in schools
However, no school was opened on 21 July. Instead, the department simply moved the date of opening of the school to August. This was again shifted to January 2016. August came and passed without any new addition to the schools in Diepsloot.
Schools opened on 13 January this year and no school was delivered to the community.
One parent who declined to be identified, accused Lesufi of politicking at the expense of their children’s education. “He made a bold promise in the full glare of the media, but come opening day, there was no school and no one is coming up with any explanation,” said the parent.
Diepsloot DA councillor, Refile Mathebula, accused Lesufi of electioneering with the children’s future. “He is the cause of the overcrowding we are experiencing in Diepsloot schools because he promised parents that a new school was on its way. The parents relaxed and waited to enrol their children in the promised new school,” said Mathebula. She said people now tended not to trust government officials who she accused of openly lying to the masses.
The then-spokesperson for the department, Puma Sekhonyane, told Fourways Review last year that the school would be completed in August. Sekhonyane apportioned the delays in finishing the school to construction wars. She said local residents chased the constructor from the site.
Fourways Review visited the site of the school this week. No construction was going on when we crossed the dusty streets of the populous township. Only building material and a fresh slab are onsite as evidence that construction had taken-off from the ground but stopped.
The new spokesperson for Lesufi, Oupa Bodibe, said construction was still underway the last time he checked in 2015.
Bobide did not respond to a set of questions e-mailed to him by the time of publication.
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