Sol Plaatje must turn streetlights on for festive season
| by Fawzia Rhoda, MPL – DA Constituency Head of Bo-Karoo |
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| Date: 21 October 2019 |
| Release: Immediate |
| The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Northern Cape has escalated our call for an investigation into the goings-on at the JJ Booysen Primary School in Loxton, to Premier Zamani Saul. This comes after our initial call for an intervention, directed at MEC of Education Mac Jack, appears to have fallen on deaf ears.The school is in the grip of a crisis, with a number of scandals and irregularities allegedly involving the school principal, Gordon Lottering, and the chairperson of the School Governing Body (SGB), Cheryl Jantjies.Lottering, who is not popular with a large contingent of parents, particularly for the way he allegedly disciplines children, has further drawn their ire following his recent reappointment as school principal. His shock reappointment came after he resigned in April this year because of his extensive involvement in the ANC’s election campaign.Lottering is believed to have powerful connections in the ANC and in the education department and has further managed to ensure that the SGB is constituted with close allies of himself and Jantjies.In effect, Lottering and Jantjies are accused of running the school like a mafia.Since his return as the head of the school, Lottering has failed to act on the alleged physical assault of a schoolteacher by Jantjies, that took place in June. He also facilitated the suspicious sponsorship of R5000 of the child of a connected member of the SGB, to attend an athletics event. There are also many questions regarding his management of an apparent R85 000 allocation to the school from the provincial department.A number of parents have signed a petition calling for Lottering’s reappointment to be revoked. The parents’ pleas, however, have been disregarded, creating the impression that Gordon is being protected.At the same time, the parents who have signed the petition are being victimised.In addition, the project director of local Non-Profit Organisation (NPO), the “I am Living Trust”, has also been accused, by Lottering, as being the instigator of the petition. In effect, the Trust which, for a number of years has offered financial and other support to the school, and also directly provided learning support to the school’s 285 learners, is being prevented from operating on the school premises, as it has done in the past.The result is that many learners have had to forfeit the additional help that they were receiving from the Trust – this is unfair and to the detriment of the children.It is clear that all is not well at JJ Booysen Primary and that an urgent intervention is required to prevent learners from being further disadvantaged by the whims of Lottering and his SGB.The DA will forward the correspondence that we previously sent to MEC Jack, to Premier Saul.If the Premier truly cares about the wellbeing of our poorer learners in our more rural areas, he will not ignore the increasingly volatile situation at JJ Booysen Primary School but will launch an urgent investigation into all the matters of concern. |
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