PICS | ‘Beyond terrible’: Inside KZN education’s crumbling Durban offices

Broken lights, burst pipes, toilets that don’t work and ceilings pocked with gaping holes — this is the shocking state of the KwaZulu-Natal education department’s offices in Durban.

Such is the state of disrepair that part of the ceiling in the women’s bathroom on the second floor of Truro House collapsed at the weekend.

IOL visited the building, which houses the department's provincial head office and its Umlazi district office, on Monday. 

During the visit, the damage in the women's bathroom was still clearly visible, with a large section of the ceiling caved in and a jagged hole exposing the wooden battens, pipes and ducting above.

The findings were documented in photographs.

Brown water stains had spread across the ceiling around the hole, and a row of tiles was missing from the wall below.

The smell of urine clung to the air in the bathrooms.

Several toilets were closed, their doors carrying signs reading "out of order" and "toilets temporarily out of order".

A notice on another door warned of water seepage and asked people to use the toilets on the third and fifth floors instead.

In one bathroom, a basin had been covered with a black refuse bag.

In the corridors, ceiling boards had come loose and fallen away, leaving gaps above office doors through which wiring could be seen hanging.

A notice pinned to a wall warned people to be careful because the floor was slippery.

Several corridors were dimly lit, with some light fittings not working and others giving off only a faint orange glow.

The walls around one of the lifts were scuffed and stained, with paint peeling away beside the call buttons.

Some air conditioning units are also not working.

IOL put questions to the national education department, which referred them to KZN education department spin doctor Muzi Mahlambi.

Mahlambi, who was approached for comment on Monday, had not responded by the time of publication.

His response will be added once received.

The KwaZulu-Natal public works and infrastructure department said it could not start any repairs at Truro House because the provincial education department had never formally asked it to, nor made money available for the work.

"[We are] a department of instruction," department spokesperson Steve Bhengu told IOL.

"This means the client department, in this case the education department, would have to instruct [us] to conduct maintenance on the building.

"It is also the responsibility of the client department to make funding available so that maintenance work can be carried out.

"Once that instruction has been issued, officials from KZN public works and infrastructure would go out to the building and conduct assessments to determine the way forward with regard to repairs.

"However, [we] cannot initiate any processes without communication, a formal request and funding made available by the client department.

"We have also not received any formal communication or request to repair from the education department."

An insider, who asked not to be named, said the ceiling collapse was not the only problem the building had faced in recent days.

"The ceiling collapsed at the weekend in the women's bathroom on the second floor," the staff member said. 

"The situation here is beyond terrible. 

"We love our jobs, but we cannot be working like this." 

Another insider said: “It’s frustrating to come to work every day and have to deal with this.

“How are we supposed to work properly when the lights don’t work, the toilets are closed and there is water leaking?

"This is a government building, not some abandoned property.”

They said they have been putting up with these conditions for far too long.

"It’s embarrassing, especially when you consider that this is our place of work. 

“You can see the problems for yourself."

Thirona Moodley, of the National Professional Teachers' Organisation of SA, or Naptosa, said the problems at the building were not new.

"The building was closed by the labour department for months.

The department closed Truro House from the middle of May into the first week of June because of building defects and health hazards.

Truro House was officially opened on November 16, 1990, and was named after the SS Truro, the ship that brought the first indentured Indian labourers to Durban on November 16, 1860.

The building was also at the centre of a dispute in March, when the DA said members of the SA Democratic Teachers' Union had occupied it for days.

DA member of the provincial legislature Sakhile Mngadi said at the time that union members had intimidated officials and chased staff from their workstations, leaving the department unable to function.

Nationally, public works and infrastructure minister Dean Macpherson said in a written parliamentary reply to IFP MP Siphosethu Ngcobo that 8,465 government buildings were in poor or critical condition as of August 1, about 10.8% of the state's property portfolio.

Macpherson said the maintenance backlog stood at about R28bn.

"The maintenance backlog of approximately R28bn will require substantial capital injection.

"Therefore, the scheduling of a timeline and refurbishment plans are subject to the confirmation of budget by the National Treasury and user departments," Macpherson said.