The DA condemns the shooting of a learner by an ANC councillor during a demonstration by parents and learners on Friday, demanding safe and hygienic ablution facilities at Mpumelelo Primary School in Middleplaas, Nkomazi local municipality.
The school has been closed since Thursday after parents and learners embarked on a demonstration at the school following an incident where another learner fell into a pit toilet but was fortunately pulled out in time.
According to reports, the ANC councillor arrived at the school accompanied by law enforcement and then fired his own gun three times in what he is alleged to have claimed was an attempt to calm the protesting parents.
One of the shots fired by the ANC Councillor hit a 16 year old learner at the school who had to be taken to hospital for treatment. See photo here.
Education MEC, Reginah Mhaule has ignored the plight for safe and hygienic ablution facilities in Nkomazi schools for so long that it seems she is waiting for a leaner to die before she takes action.
Despite human dignity being a constitutional right, there are still 549 schools in Mpumalanga that are using pit toilets and MEC Mhaule’s Department has only budgeted for 134 schools in this financial year.
Mpumelelo Primary School is not even on the Department’s Infrastructure Programme Management plan for the next three financial years meaning that if MEC Mhaule has her way, the learners at this school will continue being forced to use unsafe and unhygienic toilets.
The DA calls on the ANC to investigate and discipline its trigger-happy Councillor as he is clearly a danger to the community that he has pledged to serve.
MEC Mhaule must also urgently address the escalating tensions at Mpumelelo Primary School before it leads to the loss of life.
Not only must learners not be forced to use unsafe and unhygienic structures as ablution facilities, they must also not be threatened with guns when they choose to exercise their constitutional right to protest inhumane treatment.
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