'No money' so 30‚000 pupils forced to walk to school in Eastern Cape

Thirty-thousand schoolchildren in the Eastern Cape will have to continue walking long distances to school because the transport department has no money to transport them.

This emerged on Wednesday in the Bhisho legislature‚ where transport MEC Weziwe Tikana and other officials were grilled by the portfolio committee about her department’s budget vote for 2017-18.

Tikana said they could not make any adjustments to the R462-million allocation for scholar transport.

Instead‚ charged Tikana‚ they needed more money from provincial treasury if the 30‚000 pupils are to be included in the programme.

At the moment about 30% of the 110‚000 pupils eligible for the taxpayer-funded scholar transport will continue to walk to and from their schools.

• This article was published in the Daily Dispatch