House Chairperson, the Department of Basic Education is directly responsible for losing a R7,2-billion grant to address school infrastructure backlogs. There are 400 mud schools in the Eastern Cape alone and many more unsafe structures. It is a national disgrace that a High Court order was necessary to force the replacement of these structures. It is a national disgrace that the department has been unable to plan and implement the replacement. National Treasury has now been forced to reallocate the assigned funding.
Could the Minister explain to us - and to every learner in the rural Eastern Cape attending school in an unsafe structure, mud or otherwise - exactly how the 100 schools promised for 2012-13 and the 346 schools promised for 2013-14 will now be delivered?