‘There is something wrong there’
● Questions over how pupil’s body ended up behind pit toilet
The department of basic education is picking up a pattern of pupils being killed and thrown into pit toilets.
This startling revelation was made by the department’s spokesperson, Elijah Mhlanga, at a media briefing on school infrastructure on yesterday.
He was responding to the death of four-year-old Langalam Viki, whose body was found at the back of a pit toilet at Mcwangele Junior Secondary School in the Eastern Cape on March 6.
Mhlanga said there had been a similar case in the province where initial reports indicated that a child had fallen into a pit toilet but it was eventually discovered there had been foul play.
“Police are following certain leads in this particular case [Viki’s case] because there is something wrong there.
“Very soon, they will make an announcement.”
Basic education minister Angie Motshekga said the school had new toilets.
The little girl’s body was found in the tank of a senior toilet, not the age appropriate toilet where she would normally have gone.
“Why would she go to a senior toilet. She was not found on the pit side.
“It is physically impossible for a human body to make its way from the pit side of the toilet to the back of the toilet and [Viki] was too young to lift the manhole that covers the tank.
“How did she then end up in that section of the toilet?”
She said any child using the toilet would pull their shorts down but Viki was found fully dressed.
“These disturbing questions can only be answered by law enforcement.”
Motshekga also questioned why the bus had left one pupil behind, adding: “The incident happened after hours.
“How did [Viki] access the premises?” The department’s director-general, Mathanzima Mweli, said they had insisted that there must be lockable manholes, with the principal being responsible for keeping the key.
He said that the replacement of pit latrine toilets should not be understood to mean providing reticulated ones because there were parts of the country where running water was a problem.
“A dry solution is safe, appropriate sanitation.”
Mweli said the prevalence of pit latrines was confined to the Eastern Cape, KwaZuluNatal and Limpopo.
He said they had to deal with a poor delivery culture among implementing agents where, for example, a project expected to be completed within six months took up to three years.
He said they had to engender a new culture of project management. David van der Westhuijzen, deputy directorgeneral for infrastructure, said initially there had been about 3,400 schools with basic pit latrine toilets that were “totally unacceptable and inappropriate”, but this figure now stood at 911. He said the balance was scheduled for completion by or before March next year.
“That takes us to the end of no toilets [at schools] and the end of dependence on basic pits.”
Michael Komape, five, from Mahlodumela Primary in Limpopo, and Lumka Mkethwa, five, from Luna Primary in the Eastern Cape, drowned after falling into pit toilets at their schools in January 2014 and March 2018, respectively.
Their deaths prompted the launch of the Sanitation Appropriate for Education initiative in August 2018 to accelerate the provision of proper sanitation facilities in schools.
The issue of overcrowding in schools, which Motshekga described as a “disastrous situation”, also came under the spotlight during the briefing.
Mweli said overcrowding was “scary” as in many urban and rural areas, teachers could barely walk in the classrooms.
Van der Westhuijzen said between 35,000 and 70,000 classrooms were needed to ease overcrowding.
“It’s massive. Gauteng and the Western Cape have a severe challenge with overcrowding.”