Shoddy work puts lives in danger

Like many young girls her age, 12year-old Rethabile Fenyane had big dreams about her future.

The grade 6 pupil at Bankfontein Combined School in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, often told her family she wanted to be a doctor or a celebrity.

But it was never to be.

Last week, in a freak accident, her little body was crushed by a water tank that fell on her at the school grounds, killing her instantly.

According to her uncle Thabo Fenyane, Rethabile had been seated with her sister at the school near the water tank. Other pupils were drinking water. The tank structure collapsed and the unspeakable happened.

The incident raises several questions about why the structure was poorly secured, whose responsibility was it to secure it, and what systemic lapses led to the fatal accident?

Mpumalanga premier Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane has since ordered an investigation into what led to the tank collapsing.

She has further raised allegations of poor workmanship when the tank was erected, saying these would be investigated and that there would be consequences for those found to be liable.

The investigation is welcomed. However, this incident must be understood in a broader context of infrastructure problems in some schools in the province.

In March, the education department’s former chief civil engineer Mfanelo Mbanjwa deposed an affidavit to the Hawks wherein he alleged that contractors who were meant to fix defects in at least 14 schools in the province were paid exorbitant amounts of money for shoddy work.

He claimed that instead of fixing infrastructure that made schools unsafe, the companies only did aesthetic work such as painting and tiling floors.

Mbanjwa further claimed that he had gone into hiding after allegedly receiving death threats for blowing the whistle.

We believe that at the very least his claims provide the basis of a much broader investigation into the quality of infrastructure at these schools as well as the work done by the contractors hired to fix them.

Those found to have either neglected their duties or who were involved in corrupt activities must be criminally prosecuted for endangering the lives of innocent children like Rethabile.