Limpopo still battling to eradicate 515 pit toilets four years after court order

The Limpopo basic education department is working hard to adhere to a high court order to have all pit toilets in the province’s schools demolished, but human rights organisation Section 27 is not happy with the slow pace at which it is moving.

“Although there has been some progress to eradicate pit toilets from schools in Limpopo, delivery has been very slow and commitments to eliminate unsafe school sanitation infrastructure have repeatedly been broken,” research and advocacy officer at Section 27 Julia Chaskalson said on Monday.

At hundreds of schools in the province, pupils’ lives were endangered by unlawful pit toilets.

“And at many more schools, there is inadequate or insufficient sanitation infrastructure,” she said.

“This violates pupils’ rights to basic education, equality and dignity.”

This year, the basic education department in Limpopo budgeted R1.5 billion to address infrastructure-related problems in the province’s five regions.

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The budget, according to MEC Polly Boshielo, would also help fund the construction of ablution facilities at schools.

“The department is currently implementing water and sanitation programmes to 215 schools, using the in-house technical capacity,” she said.

“Out of the 215, 211 have been awarded to contractors and the remaining four will be awarded soon. “A total of 139 schools have been completed.

“We have also terminated the contracts of three service providers, who were awarded 17 schools, because of poor performance.

“The remaining 55 schools are currently in different stages and will be completed soon,” said Boshielo when tabling the 2022-23 budget vote in Lebowakgomo.

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In April 2018, the Limpopo High Court in Polokwane ordered Boshielo to eradicate all pit latrine toilets in the province’s schools, as they were unsafe.

The order came after the tragic death on 20 January, 2014 of a five-year-old pupil, Michael Komape, who drowned in human excrement at Mahlodumela Primary School in Chebeng village, outside Polokwane.

At the time of the order, the province had 515 schools with pit toilets.

On Monday, the department said 420 now had new user-friendly toilets and construction was still underway at the other 95 schools.

“The primary objective of the sanitation for appropriate education initiative is to replace basic pit toilets with appropriate sanitation in accordance with the norms and standards for school infrastructure,” said Limpopo basic education spokesperson Tidimalo Chuene.

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The number of toilet seats to be provided in a school was determined by pupil enrolment.

“Such number of seats must include age-appropriate facilities in primary schools as well as facilities for the disabled in all schools,” she said.

Chuene added the department was working to ensure all schools in Limpopo had the correct ablution facilities before the end of the financial year.

The Citizen’s visit to Boke Secondary School, Rajeke Primary, Taolome Secondary, Bokgaga High and Tours Primary in rural Tzaneen and Modjadjiskloof showed those schools have now better sanitation facilities than they had before 2020.

Two principals, whose schools had dilapidated toilets, some without roofs and others which were falling apart in 2020, said the toilets were built as part of government’s effort to mitigate the spread of Covid-19.