Criminals steal school equipment worth R3 million

Soweto – Last Friday burglars broke into Esithebeni Primary School in Zola and made off with items worth more than R3million.

 The items that were stolen included smart boards, tablets and computers.

  Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi visited the school on Saturday after an urgent meeting was convened with the parents.

  “We hope the community will help us and police in getting those involved arrested or recovering some of these items. This was one of our best schools in terms of ICT technology. This is a step back, now the learners must go back to using pen and paper,” he said.

  Security personnel said nine people raided the school and targeted a storage room, which was built inside a classroom, and the principal’s office.

  Lesufi said the school is highly secured, with several security measures in place. “There was no way they could enter through the door, windows or the roof. So the people who did it knew exactly what they were doing as they targeted a small portion of the wall which was not secured,” he said.

  In August, the department said over 250 Gauteng schools had been hit by theft and vandalism this year alone, with the cost of the damage exceeding R121million. In total, there had been 262 incidents of theft and vandalism since the start of 2019.