24 April 2022

The South African Communist Party (SACP) welcomes the long overdue resignation of Debbie Schafer as the MEC for Education. She leaves a very low bar for her successor, David Maynier, to clear.

As she lurched from scandal to scandal of her own making, she neglected the most important function of her department – to increase access to quality education for all in the Western Cape, with a particular focus on the poor. In fact, every matric of her performance in her portfolio decreased to such an extent that it is entirely appropriate for her to own the moniker "Debbie Downer".

Debbie has closed schools in working-class areas, restricted access to education for the mainly poor by leaving thousands of learners unplaced. Not only has this access to quality education decreased under her leadership, but the matric results of several years also shows that the matric results of the Western Cape, a province with the advantages of the legacy of colonial educational infrastructure, has plummeted from number one to number three in the country.

The only category that has shown an increase under her tenure is that of financial mismanagement.  Debbie's Western Cape Education Department has been found to have irregularly awarded contracts for PPE to the value of R54 million – enough money to open several world class schools in Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain, or in the much neglected rural communities in the province. Even worse, rather than spending the remainder of her annual budget (R350 million) on building schools or instituting programmes to support teachers and school communities, her department returned that vast sum of money to the government. Whenever the WCED and Debbie said that there was no money, those were words spoken with a forked tongue.

Debbie's department covered up incidents of institutionalised racism where schools victimised young black and brown bodies at top Western Cape schools, particularly with the issue of the persecution of learners based on their African hair. There were many more Sans Souci incidents in which she deployed her circuit managers to intimidate learners and their parents, while empowering SGBs and principals to crush any pushback against colonial standards of dress and appearance.

Debbie also covered up incidents of financial mismanagement by principals, refusing to discipline or censure the principal of Golden Grove primary and cracking down on whistleblowers who exposed his corruption. Debbie's WCED also spent R663 326 to persecute and eventually unfairly dismiss Heathfield High School principal Wesley Neumann for his common-sense approach to Covid-19, an approach which eventually became best practice and national policy across the entire national Department of Education.

Debbie Downer Shafer also made herself part of a right-wing agenda when she baited fake news that capitalised on fake white grievances regarding the non-acceptance of a white learner to UCT. Any other functional provincial government would have pushed Debbie from the cabinet long before she jumped. It is almost impossible for her successor to be any worse than the outgoing MEC, but the SACP in the Western Cape hopes that the new MEC for Education, David Maynier, will be everything that Debbie Schafer was not – dynamic, compassionate, professional, and effective.

Regarding the other appointments in the Provincial cabinet, it is clear that Alan Winde has not yet grown tired of being the ventriloquist puppet on Helen Zille's lap.

Tertius Simmers as the new MEC for infrastructure is a disaster. He has been saved from a career disaster as human settlements MEC where there is actual hard work, tough decisions, and sacrifices to be made. He was willing to do none of this, and as Helen Zille's Southern Cape "holborsel" he was given a plum deployment to further loot on behalf of the DA's corporate partners.

Youngster Daylin Mitchell has been given the vague and nebulous title of MEC for mobility to improve transport. The only mobility that he displays is that of upward mobility for himself as his main competency is to knife his comrades in the back to further his own political career.

Mireille Wenger is another Zille cadre deployment. Her husband Craig Kesson is well known for looting the corporate services coffers of the City of Cape Town, giving tenders to PWC and then taking up a lucrative position at PWC. Mereille is best known for her feckless speakership of the Provincial Legislature of the Western Cape, and her appointment as MEC for Finance and Economic Opportunities is an alarm bell.

New MEC for Community Safety and Police Oversight Regan Allen takes over the responsibility of blaming national government for the DA's failures when it comes to safety and security. His portfolio is to ensure that all are safe, not just rural agricultural barons and bourgeoisie neighbourhoods.

Issued by SACP Western Cape

Contact:

Benson Ngqentsu – Provincial Secretary (0827966400)