Komape case will continue in February 2018
The family of Michael Komape will have to wait until February next year for the trial to come to an end when the legal teams present their closing arguments before Judge Gerrit Muller.
POLOKWANE – Michael Komape (5) died after he fell into a pit toilet at his primary school, Mahlodumela Primary School, in 2014 and his family is suing the state for R3 million in damages.
The family’s case, assisted by advocacy group Section27, is against the Department of Education and the Department of Basic Education and is being heard in the Polokwane High Court.
Read more: Trial of Michael Komape to begin in the Polokwane High Court
The former principal of Mahlodumela Primary School, Maphalane Malothane, told the Limpopo High Court during her testimony that written appeals for toilet upgrades in 2004, 2005 and 2009 were ignored by the Department of Education.
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She said the school decided in 2009 to use its own money and built four corrugated iron pit toilets as a temporary measure. One of these was the toilet into which Michael fell and died.
She testified she had not appealed to the department after 2009 to ask for permanent toilets.
She was also a Gr R teacher and said she realised the boy was not in the classroom during a head count following the break, as she marked the register after each break because some children had the tendency to leave the school.
In the first week and a half of the trial the Limpopo High Court heard evidence from the family, regarding he state of the toilets at the school, the repeated attempts to get funding to build new toilets and of a provincial department that mismanaged its money.
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Earlier in the case, the Capricorn district Supervisor of Social Service Providers, Reina Molapo, testified the family had received five counselling sessions, but she could not provide records of these, saying she had not been told by the state’s lawyers to bring them to court.
Molapo said the first two counselling sessions were offered by her and that she provided the first session two days after Michael’s death.
The state called Freddy Mabidi, a financial administrator at the department who has worked there since 1996, but he could not respond to some questions posed to him.
He failed to respond to detailed questions about the department’s budget.
He agreed with Maleka when he suggested that Michael’s death was not because of lack of resources, but because the money allocated for infrastructure was not used better. In the 2012/13 financial year, the department had received R940 million from treasury, ring-fenced for infrastructure, and underspent by R311 million.
Malothane, testified after Michael’s death the school received desks and chairs as a donation in Michael’s honour, but the parents were not informed.
“I suggest to you that, [with] those temporary toilet structures, which we would argue became permanent toilets, the death of a learner such as Michael was a mere accident waiting to happen,” said Maleka to which Malothane responded ‘no comment’.
