By Palesa Matlala
- Kungentando Yena, aged one, died after falling into an unfinished pit toilet at the Khulangolwazi ECD Centre in Tsolo, Eastern Cape.
- The crèche had bronze status under the government’s Bana Pele drive, meaning it was approved to operate before passing full safety and infrastructure checks.
A toddler is dead and two government bodies are now investigating who approved a crèche that had an unfinished pit toilet on its grounds.
Kungentando Yena was one year and three months old when she fell into the toilet at the Khulangolwazi Early Childhood Development Centre in Tsolo, Eastern Cape, last Thursday. Another child, aged three, found her.
The crèche was operating under what the government calls bronze status, the entry level of the Bana Pele Mass Registration Drive for ECD centres. Bronze status is granted on the basis of a basic self-assessment. It is meant to be a temporary measure while a facility works toward meeting full safety, health and infrastructure requirements. Centres are expected to upgrade within a year.
The Eastern Cape Department of Basic Education and inspectors from Kumkani Mhlontlo Local Municipality are the authorities responsible for signing off on a facility’s infrastructure and health certificates. The department says it is now investigating who approved this site and whether anyone failed to secure it properly.
Education MEC Fundile Gade said a departmental team would visit the family. Counselling has been arranged for relatives, staff and children at the centre. Police have also opened an investigation.
Kungentando’s family says the centre was negligent.
More than 30 children have died in pit toilet incidents at South African schools and facilities since 1994. Among the most widely known are five-year-old Michael Komape, who died in Limpopo in 2014, and Lumka Mketeketo, who died in the Eastern Cape in 2018.
The South African Human Rights Commission has found that more than 400 schools in the Eastern Cape still use pit toilets, describing the situation as a violation of children’s rights to dignity, safety and life.
Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube said earlier this year that her department was working to remove all pit toilets from schools. She acknowledged that some rural areas still lack water infrastructure and said alternative sanitation solutions were being explored.
For the Yena family, those promises came too late.
Pictured above: One-year-old Kungentando Yena died after falling into an unfinished pit toilet at the Khulangolwazi ECD Centre in Tsolo, Eastern Cape.
Image source: Supplied
