The ANC has questioned why a report on school transport compiled five months before the Rheenendal bus crash is being kept secret.
|||Cape Town - The ANC has questioned why a report on school transport compiled five months before the Rheenendal bus crash in which 14 pupils died is being kept secret by Education MEC Donald Grant and the DA.
During a debate on education at the provincial legislature on Thursday, ANC MPL Max Ozinsky demanded to know why the report, which had been handed to Scopa (the standing committee on public accounts) almost two years ago, could not be discussed in the legislature.
The Learner Transport Report looked at the state of school transport and made recommendations on what could be done to improve it.
Ozinsky said this crucial report remained confidential and could not be quoted in the meeting, despite having been finalised two years ago.
“The ACDP chairman of Scopa and the DA members agreed to this bizarre, Alice in Wonderland situation, effectively giving the department the right to determine what Scopa can and can’t discuss, in the face of two legal opinions advising Scopa that the report should be made public,” Ozinsky said.
He said the report, which “would shed light on the deaths of 14 learners in the care of the WCED”, should be made public.
Ozinsky accused the chairman of the standing committee on community safety, Mark Wiley, who had argued at Scopa on Wednesday that the report remain confidential, of shielding Grant from public outrage.
“The report is of extreme public interest given that the department was in possession of it six months before a tragic school bus accident claimed the lives of 14 learners near Rheenendal,” Ozinsky said.
Ozinsky said he had seen the report, but it remained confidential. It contained information that the department was not checking the buses used to transport pupils, a contravention of the agreements it signed with service providers. It had no knowledge of what buses or routes were used.
Ozinsky said the bus that crashed at the Kasatdrift River, outside Knysna, on August 24, 2011, was not on the list of buses tested for roadworthiness.
Since the DA had taken over the province in 2009, the Education Department had closed down the operations of the bus inspection team, Ozinsky said.
Grant’s spokeswoman, Bronagh Casey, said the report was not related to the Rheenendal accident. The report, compiled by internal audit in the Department of the Premier in early 2011, focused on recommendations to improve the system. It was kept internal so that staff could discuss openly challenges faced by the department.
“(It) remains confidential and should be treated as such, unless the classification is changed.”
xolani.koyana@inl.co.za
Cape Times