R160m, six years but still no school

Weather-beaten rafters and beams removed this week so work can resume.

- Thando Nondywana

This is what you get for R70 million and five years a half-finished school, parts of which have to be torn down before the project can be finished.

Completing the task will take another year and cost a further Rgo million.

Five years after construction first began at Nancefield Primary School, the building is incomplete. This week, workers began clearing the tall grass surrounding the structure, but what was intended to be state-of-the-art facility is far from ready.

Worn-out rafters and weather-beaten beams were disassembled this week. A short distance from the construction site, about 1 300 children continue to use mobile classrooms.

The project, which was meant to transform education in the area, has been marred by numerous delays, contractor issues, and budget overruns. As of September, the school is only 50% complete.

Preventine Webster, a member of the steering committee and a local resident, has been watching the decay of the structure with growing frustration.

"This was supposed to be a pilot project, the introduction of high-level schooling like nothing we had seen before. But this school has never been prioritised," he said.