The parents of Michael Komape, the six-year-old Grade R learner who suffocated in human waste after falling into a dilapidated pit toilet in January 2014, were kept in the dark about a donation of school furniture made by a generous Samaritan to Mahlodumela Primary School after learning of the tragedy.
The Limpopo High Court on Tuesday, during testimony in a civil lawsuit against the Department of Basic Education and the Limpopo Department of Education heard that former school Principal, Maphalane Malotane and her staff were too scared to go to the Komape household to inform them about the donation.
Nomatter Ndebele, Spokesperson of Section 27, the public interest law centre suing the departments, said Malotane who was the principal when Michael died told the court she has since retired and that she was also Michael’s class teacher at the time of his death. She said she did not remember exactly when Michael started at the school but conceded that he had only been attending there for a week. She stated that Michael was not in the classroom on the day he died because it was break time.
According to Ndebele, Malotane said that Michael’s mother Rosina had collapsed after seeing Michael’s hand sticking out from the human waste in the toilet but she had done nothing to assist. She told the court that, when Rosina first arrived at the school, they did not immediately search the toilets. When they eventually did, she insisted that they search four of the toilets where they saw nothing.
The family’s legal representative, Vincent Maleka asked if Malotane would have allowed her child to use such toilets and she replied that she would not have wanted her child to use them. Two weeks ago, at the beginning of the case, the court heard that certain educators and some authorities had forced a resident to delete pictures taken at the scene. Malotane confirmed that she was present when the resident, Charles Malebana, was confronted and told to delete the photos although she could not recall who else was present nor who insisted that Malebana delete the photos.
On Monday, according to Ndebele, the case focused on the Department of Education’s finances and infrastructure backlog. Ndebele informed that Maleka had referred to the finances of the department, saying that there were two years where there was a great amount of money, an excess of R2 billion of unauthorised expenditure. He further stated that an amount of R1,5 billion was given to the department to spend in the province to fulfil its promises.
He addressed the fact that the money that was underspent could have been used to better infrastructure and other such matters in the province. Again, Michael’s death was not a matter of a lack of resources, he added.
State witness Freddie Mabidi, a financial administrator at the Department of Education, reportedly struggled in the witness box as he tried to refute hard facts about underspending and a lack of proper infrastructure in schools. He however reportedly confirmed that sanitation issues still exist despite the department having ‘planned projects’. The state’s legal representative, Simon Phaswane reportedly questioned Mabidi who in response could not soundly answer any of the questions.
Ndebele said the case was set to continue on 1 February.
Story: ENDY SENYATSI
>>endy@observer.co.za
