Gauteng schools: Figures don’t add up – independent audit needed to clear up confusion

5 November 2018

Last week Thursday during a media conference in Johannesburg, the MEC for Education in Gauteng, Panyaza Lesufi, indicated that 54 new schools were built in Gauteng since 2014.

According to media reports, however, Lesufi said in August 2018 that 47 new schools were built. In January 2018, the Department said that only 42 new schools were built.

These contradictory figures show how confused Lesufi is concerning the situation. On 4 May 2018, the FF Plus asked the national Minister of Education how many schools had been built in Gauteng for the period of 2014 to 2018. The Minister's answer was 52 and she provided the FF Plus with a list of the 52 schools.

On 26 February 2018, the FF Plus obtained a list of all the schools in Gauteng from the Department. The most recent list was also downloaded from the Department's website last Friday.

A quick comparison of the two lists revealed that 30 of the new schools on the Minister's list do not appear on the Gauteng Department of Education's list at all. Thus, only 22 new schools are listed on the Department's list. This paints an entirely different picture as it seems to indicate that only 22 new and operational schools have been built since 2014.

Lesufi will have to explain what is going on and he will have to prove that the 52 new schools have indeed been built and that they are operational. If he is unable to do this, an independent audit must be done to determine how many new schools there are in Gauteng as well as how many of them are operational.

This matter will only be clarified if the MEC can provide the relevant evidence. If he is, however, unable to do so, the FF Plus will have no choice but to request that an independent audit be conducted on all the schools in the province.

If such an audit were to uncover that there are schools on the list that are not operational or that have not even been built, then a more thorough investigation will have to be done to determine what the MEC and his Department used the funds, that were allocated for building new schools, for.

If such an audit were to find that the right number of schools were indeed built and that they are operational, it would mean that the Department is not doing its job properly as the lists were never updated.

The reason why the MEC refused to answer the FF Plus's question on the topic on 28 June 2018 in the Legislature is becoming clearer and the puzzle pieces are starting to fall into place.

Issued Philip van Staden, FF Plus MPL: Gauteng Legislature, 5 November 2018