A shame that R1 billion of Gauteng Department of Education’s budget was not spend
26 September 2019
Over the last financial year, the Gauteng Department of Education has once again vastly underspent its budget under the leadership of its MEC, Panyaza Lesufi, while there are great infrastructure backlogs in the province because additional schools are not being built.
Lesufi tries to counter his sheer inability to use the budget effectively by arrogantly targeting Afrikaans schools in an attempt to anglicise these schools by forcing them to enrol learners who do not speak Afrikaans.
The MEC keeps on doing this even though he knows that it is illegal – an example is Overvaal High School where officials from his own Department forced the principals of two other schools to declare under oath that their schools were filled to capacity while it was not in fact the case.
This is just another example of how an Afrikaans school was forced to accommodate learners who speak other languages, while Lesufi's Department failed to use a billion rand at its disposal to build additional infrastructure. The same scenario played out in previous years when large budgets were not spent, but pressure was put on Afrikaans schools because there are apparently not enough schools in the province.
It is a shame that a person who only pretends to care about the learners of Gauteng is still in office as Education MEC for the province even though he has shown himself incompetent for the umpteenth time.
The FF Plus demands that he must be dismissed at once and the party will do everything in its power to ensure that he does not remain in office.
The FF Plus is busy conducting investigations into Lesufi and will shortly lodge complaints against him with various institutions to ensure that the Department gets a new head who is competent and who truly cares about Gauteng learners.
The new MEC must be someone who will protect mother-tongue education and who does not have a problem with Afrikaans and Afrikaans schools.
Issued by Anton Alberts, FF Plus national chairperson and MPL in Gauteng Legislature, 26 September 2019
