Fancy school turns into slum - no one wants to take responsibility

IT WAS once a prestigious boarding school. But now it's a slum without electricity and no government department wants to take responsibility for it.

Central Secondary State School in Soshanguve, north of Pretoria, which was shut down in 1999 is now in a state of neglect.

More than 1000 people have turned the former boarding school into a hostel.

More puzzling is that the building is next to the Tshwane University of Technology Soshanguve North Campus, the Soshanguve police station and magistrate's court, which are all in operation.

Spokeswoman for the Gauteng department of education Phumla Sekhonyane told Sowetan the procedure after a school had been closed down was to hand it over to the provincial department of infrastructure and development.

She said after the school was shut down in 1999 the department had followed that procedure.

But spokesman for the department of infrastructure development Mbangwa Xaba told Sowetan the school was handed to then provincial department of housing and land affairs, now the department of human settlements, and was not the property of the department.

But spokesman for the department of human settlements Motsamai Motlhaolwa disputed this and said the building was the property of the provincial department of education.

The residents who have occupied the building have no electricity but have access to water.

The City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality has also washed its hands of the building.

Spokesman for the city Selby Bokaba said the building was the property of the department of education. But Sekhonyane was adamant that the building was no longer the property of department.

Residents happy to have some shelter

IN ITS prime, Central Secondary State School in Pretoria was the envy of many. It produced great minds like renowned professor Mike Sathekge, who is the head of nuclear medicine at the University of Pretoria.

Olympic athlete Bobang Phiri also attended the school in the late 1980s. But today, the building that was once a centre of learning is now a slum without electricity and is occupied illegally by more than 1000 people.

Central Secondary State School was shut down in 1999, and since then a combination of neglect by state departments and an influx of people looking for a home has turned it into a squalid hellhole.

The residents have turned what used to be classrooms and hostel facilities into their homes.

The dilapidated property is next to the Tshwane University of Technology in Soshanguve.

It is also home to students from the institution who did not get accommodation in one of the university's residences. One of them is a first-year language practice student from Limpopo.

She shares a small room with her friend and they pay rent of R50 to the owner of the room.

There is no electricity in the building and the only source of light for the students is a candle.

Cockroaches run freely on the wall and on the floor in the room.

All the windowpanes are broken and window frames are covered with cardboard and refuse bags. "People say hurtful things like we smell of paraffin and that we stay at a place that is dirty and stinks. The comments used to hurt me before and I even thought of dropping out, but now I just shrug them off," she said.

Running water flows freely from broken water pipes.

Residents who spoke to Sowetan said they bought their rooms from other people who had occupied the deserted building from the early 1980s when the hostel facilities were discontinued.

Emmanuel Mahlangu, who moved in four years ago, paid R1500 for his room. He said he was not bothered by the appalling conditions but was happy to have a roof over his head. The rooms are sold for anything from R800 upwards, according to Mahlangu.

When he gets a better place to stay, he would also sell his room to someone else.

And so the cycle continues.

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