The basic upgrades, termed Norms and Standards, had themselves been a result of litigation by Equal Education and other activist groups, Mr. Linde said, adding: “We see constant attempts by government to make excuses for not delivering.”
The education department had missed its own deadline for implementing the upgrades, leading to last month’s High Court challenge, which aimed to shut down legislative loopholes that had allowed delays. “We don’t want to waste time, or for the government to waste more money, on further litigation, but now we have to,” said Mr. Linde.
Activists stepped up campaigns over school toilets after the 2014 death of Michael Komape in Limpopo Province, where two in three schools still have pit toilets. Komape’s mother fainted when she saw his hand sticking out from a mound of feces. This March, Lumka Mkhethwa, who was also just five years old, died in the Eastern Cape, renewing calls for the government to address the crisis.
Axolile Notywala, general secretary of the Social Justice Coalition, said that sanitation problems in South Africa extended well beyond schools. “Where children don’t have toilets in schools, they go often home and don’t have access either,” Mr. Notywala said.
“Millions of rands,” Mr. Notywala added, had been lost to corruption, with private companies linked to government officials contracted to build and service toilets.
With national elections looming next year, Mr. Notywala saw Tuesday’s news as “electioneering,” he went on. “It says: we care about your votes, we care about getting power, and that’s all we care about. We don’t care about what happens to your children.”
Source : Nytimes
