Deputy Speaker, the Department of Basic Education must explain why it lost a R7,2-billion grant to address the school infrastructure backlog. This money was intended to replace mud schools, but the department has failed to spend it. This is as much an utter calamity for the learners as it is a pitiful disgrace for South Africa. Learners all over our country are still taught in structures that are damp, that are cold and that do not have basic necessities such as water, electricity and hygienic toilets.
I have personally visited these mud schools numerous times. In February this year, the department made a commitment to replacing 49 mud schools with new buildings by August. They missed this deadline and extended it to November. Much like the department missed the delivery of textbooks in Limpopo, so it is missing the deadlines for building school classrooms. The question is how we can reverse the legacy of apartheid education if this government cannot spend its money on giving all our learners the opportunities they need to succeed in life.
Minister Motshekga, in a recent address to Sadtu, said: "We are prepared to boil the ocean for better education." Minister, we do not expect you to do something as monumental as boiling the ocean. All that we ask of you to do are things as simple as building schools and delivering textbooks to the children whose only wish is to learn under circumstances of human decency. [Applause.]