Pupils fight over furniture as president fails to deliver

HUNDREDS of Nelson Mandela Bay schools are in dire need of desks and chairs, with thousands of pupils forced to work kneeling on the floor, fighting for desk space or using paint tins to support severely dilapidated furniture.

But broken furniture is not all the pupils have to contend with.

They must also deal with a broken promise from President Jacob Zuma who, during his state of the nation address in June, told millions of teachers and pupils across the country that all schools in the Eastern Cape would have their furniture delivered by the middle of last month.

With August having come and gone, pupils have no idea when they will get the furniture. Of more than 50 schools in Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage contacted by the Herald, 34 had not yet received their furniture, some of it ordered at the beginning of the year.

Attempts to get answers from the Presidency and the provincial Education Department as to when schools would get their furniture were referred to the national office, which had taken charge of the delivery process.

In his address to the nation on June 17, Zuma said with the national government having centralised procurement, the effort would be piloted in the Eastern Cape and the province's schools would all receive their furniture last month. - Report by Zandile Mbabela, Yonela Mgwali, Chanice Koopman, Nomazima Nkosi and Jerome Cornelius