Basic Education Director-General, Mr Mathanzima Mweli, last week, continued with the monitoring and oversight of the Sanitation Appropriate for Education (SAFE) construction sites as part of the Batch 5 Projects at schools across provinces.
Mr Mweli is currently monitoring sanitation projects to ensure that deadlines are met and implementing agent’s complete projects timeously. The DG is accompanied by Senior Managers from National, Provincial and District level of both TMT and the DBE who possess expertise of: Education planning development and implementation; Finance and Accounting; Engineers; Quantity Surveyors; Architects and Project Managers.
The first day focussed on projects located under the OR Tambo Coastal and a few from Amathole East Districts. Given the vast distances, bad conditions of the roads, rain and the misty weather conditions, the team was able to monitor only 12 projects, and this fell far below the usual norm of an average of between 15 and 25 a day.
The aforementioned militating conditions worsened on the second day, and only 19 schools were covered in Amathole East District. These conditions became so severe and life threatening that the programme got halted earlier than would usually have happened because during the night the risk of travelling became much higher.
The third day became much better, the weather cleared, the work rate increased phenomenally to cover 30 construction sites in Amathole West and Buffalo City Districts, which is roughly the number of sites which were covered in two days. This was attributable to the flexibility, agility and the selfless sacrifice of the team’s preparedness of the team to work late into the night up to the early hours of the morning to cover for the number of projects which were below the norm for the first two days. On The last day, only 13 construction sites were visited to make provision for travelling arrangements for team members to various destinations in the province and the country.
Overall, 74 projects were covered this week under extremely difficult conditions which is an increase of four more projects from the 70 which was covered last week. Credit and appreciation needs to be proffered to each members of the team who demonstrated unparalleled resilience and determination to carry out their work under life threatening conditions with the greatest precaution and precision to achieve the aforementioned amazing results. “The calibre of this team should not only be emulated but should be replicated in the department, the sector and the entire public service,” said DG Mweli.
Monitoring will continue again in the Eastern Cape to wrap up the remaining 61 Batch 5 projects implemented under The Mvula Trust (TMT).