Committee grills department over unoccupied School
Members of the Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Infrastructure Development today demanded answers from Officials from the Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development (DID) over its failure to hand over a certificate of occupancy of Nokuthula LSEN School to the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE).
Nokuthula LSEN School, which is one of its kind in Gauteng, cost the State R248 159 795 to construct. It has been unoccupied since October 2017.
The hand-over ceremony of this state-of-the-art school was held in October 2018. The understanding of the Committee was that the school would be occupied and utilised in January 2018, but has remained a white elephant for over eight months.
The school is designed to cater for 560 learners with special educational needs differing from Autism, heavy to light vocational challenges together with physical disabilities.
The Committee is of the view that the failure of the DID to provide the occupancy certificate undermines the efforts of the Gauteng Provincial Government to make available quality education facilities to learners with special education needs who have for years been marginalized.
The Committee rejected the report presented by the DID as it did not provide any answers as to why 8 months down the line the occupancy certificate is not issued, who was responsible to issue it and how long will they take to issue the certificate to allow the GDE to occupy the school.
The Committee further requested the Department to come back on the 21 June 2018 to present a detail report Nokuthula LSEN School occupancy certificate.
Enquiries:
Thebe Khumalo
Tel: 011 498 5948
Cell: 072 266 1021
E-mail: TKhumalo@gpl.gov.za
