• Construction at 123 schools in KZN is expected to be complete by February 2023.
• As many as 187 schools are still undergoing procurement.
• Ahead of the December holiday period repairs of infrastructure and beaches continue in anticipation of the arrival of holidaymakers.

Back in April and May floods hit KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) causing damage to houses, schools and other infrastructure. This week, KZN Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube provided an update regarding the repair work at the province’s schools.

To provide context, as many as 356 schools were damaged in the floods. Repair work has been completed at 46 of these schools while 123 are in the construction stage and 187 are still going through the procurement stage.

Despite this, the Premier says that construction will be complete by February 2023.

“A total of 76 mobile classrooms have been installed in 29 schools in the province. Those under construction will be completed before the end of February 2023,” Dube-Ncube told SA News.

If this timeline feels slow, that’s because it is. According to the Premier construction has been delayed by a Real Time Audit that was conducted by the Provincial Treasury.

As for the 187 schools still undergoing procurement, the Premier says that 157 of these will handed over before the end of this month.

“The balance of the 20 of the 187 schools will be under construction within the first quarter of the 2023/24 financial year,” said the Premier.

Repairs and construction are being undertaken by a number of organisations including COEGA, Sasol, SA Medical and Education Foundation and Momentum.

“For the schools under Sasol, the site hand over was conducted on 4th October 2022 and they will be completed by 31st December 2022. These schools are Mlinganiswa Primary in uGu, Umnini Memorial Primary in Umlazi, Sidiya Junior Primary in Umlazi, Sicelimpilo Primary in Umlazi, Ndabikhona Primary in uMgungundlovu and Kwamlamuli Primary in uMgungundlovu,” said Dube-Ncube.

With schools at the coast re-opening on 19th January, this repair work really needs to be ramped up. While there are mobile classrooms to serve certain schools while repairs are happening, the department would do well to expedite these repairs to happen as fast as possible.

Aside from schools, repairs of infrastructure continue as well.

The repairs at uThongathi Water Treatment Plant were completed at the end of October and this restored water availability in the surrounding areas.

More importantly, government is working hard to fix infrastructure and tourist destinations ahead of the December holiday period.

“Contractors are also hard at work repairing sanitation infrastructure in other parts of the eThekwini Metro. We are working as quickly as we can to ensure that as we approach the festive season, our visitors are able to enjoy themselves at all our beaches,” the Premier said.

“The target is to have all beaches opened by the end of November 2022. There are beaches that are already open, including Point, uShaka, Addington, South, Wedge, North, Bay of Plenty, Battery, Country Club, Brighton, Reunion, Pipeline, Toti Main, Warner, and uMgababa beaches,” Dube-Ncube concluded.

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