12 May 2020

South East District Council secretary, Mr Nelson Mogapi says all primary schools in the district are almost ready to reopen for pupils after undergoing refurbishment as a response to COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr Mogapi, who was briefing district COVID-19 response team on May 11, said ongoing maintenance of primary schools toilets was almost complete.

Apart from maintaining school toilets, he said the district was installing hand washing basins and taps to all schools to enable pupils to wash their hands.

Mr Mogapi said the exercise would ensure that the district was ready to reopen all its schools when the schools reopen.

However, he highlighted that only Seboko Primary school was behind due to the amount of work that was to be done at the school’s toilets but he expressed optimism that the schools would be ready for the reopening.

Furthermore, he said the district would install 10 000 litres water tanks across all its schools.

He said the installation of water tanks was to cater for pupils to be able to use toilets safely when water was unavalaible.

Mr Mogapi said the procurement of the tanks was completed and they were only awaiting installation.

As for food aid distribution, he said the district would wrap its food package distribution this week.

Mr Mopagi said already over 9 580 households had received their food hampers while only 2 983 were left as of May 11.

However, he said the numbers could change, as the council was yet completed its assessment.

He also said the council was faced with challenges in the food distribution exercise owing to shortage of some food items.

Mr Mogapi said some beneficiaries refused to take certain food items saying it was not what they were expecting. ENDS