Nw Schools Still Plagued By Asbestos, Committee Demands Answers

The North West Legislatures Committee on Education says its flabbergasted that there are still schools with asbestos infrastructure in the province. It is now over 14 years since the South African government banned the use of asbestos.

This was after it was scientifically proven that it causes a chronic lung disease called asbestosis. The committee has slammed the provincial Education Department over its failure to eradicate asbestos buildings at the Onkgopotse Tiro Comprehensive School in Klippan, following an oversight visit to the school.

The South African government banned asbestos in 2008 after scientific evidence showed that it makes people sick.

We will know that the Department of Health has long ago discontinued, or it instructed that all government buildings that have asbestos roofing should be put down or that are structured in asbestos should be put down because they cause a disease called asbestosis. Now in Onkgopotse, the kids food is being cooked in a kitchen that still has that type of a roof, says the chairperson for the North West Legislatures Committee on Education, Priscilla Williams.

To date, some schools in rural North West still have asbestos structures. A situation that has left the provincial legislatures committee on education stunned. The committee made a follow-up visit to the Onkgopotse Tiro Comprehensive School to, as Williams explains, to check if the department had kept its promise to remove the asbestos.