In The Spaceof a mere month, about 200 pupils from two Namibian schools – about 800 kilometres apart – fell ill, with some pupils even being admitted to intensive care units (ICUs), a treatment stage at hospitals that provides life support and is aimed at preventing death.
The cause: poor sanitation.
Last month, more than 170 pupils at the Maria Mwengere Senior Secondary School at Rundu were exposed to suspected food poisoning.
Thirty-three of them were admitted to hospital.
One of the pupils was so critically ill, they ended up in ICU.
Minister of education, innovation, youth, sport, arts and culture Sanet Steenkamp told parliament the main cause was water contamination from poorly maintained tanks and related infrastructure.
At the village of Tubusis (about 55km north of Usakos), the !Oe#Gab Primary School in the Erongo region had to be shut down after 16 pupils were hospitalised following exposure to bad sanitation.
One pupil was unable to walk and eat unaided.
About 270 pupils are now unable to go to school.
This week the government news agency, Namibia Press Agency, reported on a raw sewage crisis at the Leevi Hakusembe secondary school in Kavango West.
Photographs showed swamps of stagnant, contaminated water after toilet effluent overflowed into classrooms, hostels and teacher accommodation facilities following a system failure at the school.
That is only three schools. Three too many. It also begs the question of whether regular school inspections are still carried out.
The kitchen at Maria Mwengere school has not undergone hygiene tests since 2014.
We are getting the basics wrong. Badly.
The importance of the upkeep and repair of state property should be as simple as A, B, C. Having a comprehensive maintenance programme helps protect pupils and teachers, school assets and prevents disruptions to education.
Add to that the common sight of poorly maintained government vehicles, houses, offices, hospitals and other infrastructure around the country and it’s clear there’s a national disaster, one of government’s own making.
It’s a disaster that can be directly linked to a basic and systemic failure to maintain state facilities.
Just recently, works and transport minister Veikko Nekundi complained about the maintenance of government vehicles to the extent that he wants state cars to be sold after they reach 120 000km.
That solution is so ridiculous that it can only be seen as cynical and self-serving, especially considering that Cabinet members are already given the first option to buy state vehicles after they’ve been used for about five years.
Auctioning (and other ‘alienation’ of) state assets deemed old should not be the first solution.
That approach only provides an incentive for self-enrichment by people entrusted with stewarding and managing state property.
A lot of state-owned houses written off as old by bureaucrats and politicians, or as no longer needed, were sold for peanuts – to themselves and friends, some of whom immediately resold them at a price several times more than they paid into the tax coffers.
The failure to maintain state infrastructure is self-serving and a sign of sheer incompetence on the part of the government – across the board.
Since independence, politicians, bureaucrats and their tenderpreneur favourites have shown a penchant for building new infrastructure while neglecting the maintenance of existing buildings and other assets.
Sadly, in many cases, the old infrastructure still tends to last longer than the newly built structures, a case of shoddy work exposing that the motivation to build anew is driven more by kleptocracy than delivering to the public.
Pupils and teachers falling sick at schools because of poor hygiene, hospitals creaking with broken medical equipment, government garages becoming vehicle graveyards and sport stadiums that can’t host national team matches against other countries screams at the government to change its approach towards maintaining existing facilities instead of always rushing to build new ones.
There are no shortcuts: maintain, maintain, maintain what is there, and rather build less of the new infrastructure.
