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Photo by Gallo Images / Sydney Seshibedi
- The principal of Luthuthu Junior Secondary school allegedly forced a student into a pit toilet to retrieve his lost cell phone.
- He has been arrested and He is expected to appear before the Nqanqarhu Magistrates Court on a charge of attempted murder.
- Of the 5,037 public schools in the Eastern Cape, 1,598 still use pit toilets.
Police arrested the principal of Luthuthu Junior Secondary School in the Eastern Cape for allegedly forcing a student to enter a pit toilet to retrieve his lost cell phone.
Lubeko Mgandela, 49, faces an attempted murder charge after he allegedly used a rope to lower an 11-year-old student down a pit toilet to search for his cell phone.
It is understood that Mgandela had accidentally dropped her cell phone in the staff bathroom on March 1 when she was using the bathroom.
Eastern Cape Police spokesman Capt Khaya Tonjeni said the director was arrested in Ugie on Monday and charged with attempted murder.
Police said the director was expected to appear at the Nqanqarhu (Maclear) Magistrates Court on Tuesday.
Tonjeni said:
The suspect is alleged to have had an 11-year-old boy undressed and placed in a bathroom that was filled with human feces. The boy was reportedly tied with a rope across his upper body and was lowered into the toilet shaft by other students in an effort to retrieve a cell phone that fell into the pit latrine.
Fury broke out over the incident and communities called for Mgandela to be arrested and fired from his post.
The Eastern Cape Department of Education has placed Mgandela on preventive suspension and launched an internal investigation.
The disturbing incident occurred in Elundini Township in the Joe Gqabi district.
Dozens of students allegedly saw the boy covered in feces, who is now too embarrassed to attend class.
READ | Principal Suspended for Forcing Student to Enter Well Bathroom to Search for Lost Cell Phone
Dozens of other school children also participated in the mobile phone search operation, allegedly on the orders of Mgandela.
Local advocacy group Khula Community Development Project (KCDP) claimed that Mgandela ordered several students to use buckets to remove as much feces as possible before they flushed the boy down the pit toilet.
KCDP reported that the boy was knee-deep in human debris and used his hands to search for the cell phone.
According to KCDP principal Petros Majola, the principal had promised the student R200 for the job, but when the student returned without the cell phone, the disappointed principal gave him only R50.
Of the 5,037 public schools in the Eastern Cape, 1,598 still use pit toilets.
The Safe program of the Department of Basic Education, which was designed to build toilets in these schools, has not achieved its objective.
In the previous exercise, your goal was to build toilets in 242 schools, but you only built 24 toilets in these schools.
Basic education department spokesman Elijah Mhlanga defended the department, saying lockdown regulations halted construction.
He added that the general director of basic education Mathanzima Mweli was in the Eastern Cape this Monday in one of his visits to more than 100 projects in different provinces where the Safe initiative is being implemented.
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