As the education department gears up to welcome thousands of pupils to schools next week, the taxi industry is considering pulling the plug on scholar transport if its operators are not paid by the end of this week.
Santaco leaders said discussions and meetings this week would determine if the service providers would ferry thousands of pupils to their schools come Wednesday next week.
Eastern Cape Santaco A deputy chair Sandile Sifolo said there were operators whose invoices had still not been paid.
Taxi boss Gabs Mtshala, leader of breakaway Santaco B, said the transport department had not paid some operators since November.
We are left with a week before schools open and we have not heard anything about when contracting will done
“We have a general meeting on Thursday where we will decide whether we continue ferrying pupils or not.
“The likelihood is we won’t be able to operate next week if there are people who have not been paid.
“Ninety percent of scholar transport operators are from the taxi industry. We have people whose vehicles will be repossessed if they don’t pay.
“We are left with a week before schools open and we have not heard anything about when contracting will done.”
Last year, transport MEC Xolile Nqatha said his department would do “all it takes” to ensure no pupils were left stranded.
DA education shadow MEC Horatio Hendricks said the party was “extremely sceptical of the department of education saying everything is ready for the 2024 academic year”.
“Past experience has shown many schools are damaged so badly by thieves and vandals over the school holidays that they become unsafe for children.
“Schools have also battled with teacher shortages and a lack of learning materials.
“Transport MEC Nqatha confirmed that the scholar transport budget for the year was R695m; R230m of that had to be used to pay off old debt, leaving just R465m for scholar transport for the financial year.
“Operating costs to transport 103,000 learners exceed R100m a month, so even with the most reserved calculations the programme is out of money.”
Alakhe Silakhwe, from Sihlabeni village in Dutywa, who will be doing grade 11 this year, said they did not have scholar transport from their area to Vulingcobo Senior Secondary School, which meant they had to walk about 7km each way.
“We wake up very early in the morning and walk to catch a lift which we pay for out of our pockets.”
Transport department spokesperson Unathi Binqose said the department was “using the available time between now and the date of schools reopening to put in final touches to our preparations”.
As to how many pupils needed transport, Binqose said the numbers were reassessed at the start of the school year.
“We are nearly ready. The few outstanding matters are being dealt with and we’re confident that in the next couple of days we will be there.
“The budget may change at the beginning of the financial year, April 2024.
“We have drawn from lessons from past challenges [nonpayment of scholar transport services] and have come up with systems to attend to those problems.
“We are confident there will be a marked improvement on that score.”
Education department spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima said 123,570 Eastern Cape children were expected to attend their first day of big school — grade 1 — next Wednesday.
He said 152,827 pupils would start high school, while there would be 114,776 in the matric class of 2024.
Mtima said learner-teacher support material, nutrition and desk deliveries had been completed in 2023.
“We expect teaching will take place on the first day, because we have also pushed for orientation ahead of the first day of school.”
Mtima said a report on whether any schools had been damaged or vandalised during the holidays would be received when the schools opened.
Head of Equal Education in the Eastern Cape, Itumeleng Mothlabane, said the province had a huge infrastructure backlog.
“It is hard to even determine the extent of the problem because the department’s data is unreliable.
“What we know is that they have about 700 schools that depend on pit latrines.
“When it comes to water, a lot of our schools are dependent on tanks which is an unreliable source.
“A lot of schools are overcrowded while some have fewer learners in classrooms, which means rationalisation issues have still not been addressed.
“Through Equal Education’s investigation, we found that in the past two years, some schools were affected by disasters.
“In Dimbaza (Qonce) some schools had their roofs blown off. That means learners are exposed to danger.”
She said challenges in the provision of infrastructure affected pupils’ academic excellence.
Loyiso Mbinda, teacher union Naptosa’s Eastern Cape CEO, cited Nkunyana Junior Secondary School in Tlokoeng (formerly Mount Fletcher), as a school affected by storms in August.
“I visited the school and reported it to senior officials.
“This week, I discovered the school’s pit toilets, damaged by the disaster, had still not been fixed.
“This means teachers [will have to continue to] go to the village if they want to relieve themselves.
“There is an act of parliament that indicated that by 2017 there should be no pit latrines in our schools. But to this day we still have them.
“It seems as if it is only the stationery that is ready.”
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