Limpopo Departments of Health and Education continue to disappoint

These were the toilets at Bale Primary School in Limpopo. On the first day of school, learners got a surprise - six new toilets.

 

These were the toilets at Bale Primary School in Limpopo. On the first day of school, learners got a surprise - six new toilets.
These were the toilets at Bale Primary School in Limpopo. On the first day of school, learners got a surprise – six new toilets.

The poor performance of the department was revealed during this week’s announcement of the 2015-2016 Auditor-General Report. This is the fifth year in a row that the department failed to get a clean audit which has seen it been placed under section 100(1)(b) of the Public Finance Management Act for intervention.

The AG’s report also revealed that Limpopo’s departments of Health and Education – the two key service delivery departments which account for 76 percent of the provincial budget namely – both performed poorly.

The Auditor-General, Kimi Makwetu released the report regarding the 2015-2016 audit results on Wednesday in Parliament. While announcing the report Makwetu said that despite getting 47 percent of the provincial budget, the Limpopo Department of Education continued its disappointing performance.

Most of the schools in the province are in such bad condition that they have sparked protest in recent months, and parents have threatened to pull their children out of school. The department also still has a backlog to re-build and renovate schools which were burned in the Vuwani area during the municipal demarcation protests by the residents earlier this year.

We have already appointed four heads of departments in the province and we will continue to monitor all our departments to improve.

Most of the government schools in the Vhembe district are still waiting on the Department of Education to renovate their dilapidated schools, but nothing is being done despite ongoing promises by the department that it is doing all it can to improve schools in the province.

Schools in the province that have protested against poor conditions this year include Rivoni School for the Blind, Vhembe FET College, Hlalelani Primary School and Bale Primary School. But still nothing has been done by the department to improve the situation and children continue to learn in shoddy and unsafe conditions.

Limpopo Government spokesperson Phuthi Seloba said plans had already been made to improve the situation in the province.

“We have already appointed four heads of departments in the province and we will continue to monitor all our departments to improve,” said Seloba. Asked if the situation in the Vuwani area had contributed to the poor performance of the Department of Education, Seloba said: “We cannot link the situation which took place in the Vuwani area with the poor performance of the department.”

He said that most of the problem issues affecting the Department of Health in the province had already been dealt with before the Auditor-General released the report.

Author

Free to Share

Creative Commons License

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Stay in the loop

We love that you love visiting our site. Our content is free, but to continue reading, please register.

Newsletter Subscription