ANGRY PARENTS, ORGANISATIONS AND ACTIVISTS DESCEND UPON TREASURY DEMANDING PAYMENT OF DEBT

Angry parents, civic organisations and political activists, COSAS members descended upon the National Treasury in Tshwane on Wednesday to demand that the Treasury must pay off the debt owed by the Gauteng Department of Education to bus scholar transport operators.

Bus scholar transport operators stopped picking up learners from various pick -up points around the Gauteng Province two weeks ago in protest against failure by the Gauteng Department of Education to pay them.

This scenario has led to learners who use bus scholar transport being unable to go to their various schools.

African School Governers Association (ASGA) chairperson Jomo Moyahabo Rapholo said the purpose of the march was to go to the National Treasury and negotiate with it to pay the debt that is owed by the Gauteng Department of Education and make sure that such a debt never occurs again.

“Failure to pay the scholar transport debt has impacted negatively on about 200 000 learners who are unable to access education because scholar transport bus operations have been stopped due to non-payment by the Gauteng Department of Education,” he said.

“It is painful that one child in Soshanguve has died due to lack of scholar transport and we are therefore saying scholar transport operations must resume with immediate effect and not on Monday to avoid similar incidents like the one whereby a learner lost his life,” he said.

He said MEC Matome Chiloane is acting in good faith in this matter because no money was embezzled in this regard and that the responsibility lies with the Treasury to pay up.

He pleaded with the Gauteng Education authorities to never stop engaging Treasury regarding the payment of the debt and begged government departments who have not used all their budgets to give the money to the Gauteng Department of Education rather than returning those funds back to the Treasury.

Chairman of Phumla Mxashi Informal Settlement in Lenasia South Jeffrey Mavhenda Mphohoni said it was unfair that their kids living in Informal settlements can’t go to school as a result of the Gauteng Department of Education’s failure to pay bus scholar transport operators.

“It now costs us up to R80 a day to get private transport for our kids to go to school from Lenasia to schools which are in places like Soweto,” he said.

“To MEC Matome Chiloane I would like to say he must not involve their kids in their fight against bus scholar transport operators and he must also stop lying on social media by saying he has paid the debt while in fact he has not,” said Mphohoni.

“I don’t believe MEC Matome Chiloane at all because he is a politician and all politicians can tell you one thing today then change it the next day,” he said.

Mabopane Winterveldt Ga-Rankuwa SANCO Zonal chairperson David Setshedi said as SANCO they won’t remain silent when the rights of the poor black people, including those of their children are being violated by the government.

“We advocate for the rights of the poor black child and the conflict that the government has with bus scholar transport operators must not affect the poor black child whose parents can’t afford private transport and we recently had a situation whereby a child died because he had not been to school due to the unavailability of the scholar transport,” said Setshedi.

“It is clear that the GDE has not yet resolved the issue of the debt owed to scholar transport operators, that is why he is saying the buses may start operating on Monday, and doesn’t say the buses will definitely operate on Monday and another thing is that we don’t experience these kinds of hiccups regarding education in the suburbs, this nonsense only happens in the black education system,” fumed Setshedi.

Thato Seatlhodi from Mabopane told Tshwane Talks that he stays far away from schooling facilities and about 500 learners from his area depend on bus scholar transport, so this means all of them can’t go to school now due to the suspension of the buses.

One of the leaders of the march addressed the crowd and pointed out that children of government officials attend affluent schools like Curo Foundation and threatened that they will go to such schools and disrupt learning there and also warned that the government is given 24 hours to resolve the scholar transport issue, otherwise they will come and impound all blue light vehicles used by government officials

One bus driver who works as a scholar transport operator said some owners of these scholar transport buses have not registered their drivers and pay them as little as R4000 a month and that they do as they wish because they have friends in the top echelons of the government and are therefore protected.