EAST LONDON - An Eastern Cape mother is seeking justice for her four-year-old daughter.
Langalam Viki drowned in a pit toilet at her preschool last week.
The Department of Education in the Eastern Cape has launched an internal investigation.
Naptosa's Basil Manuel says the tragedy happened due to the department's inefficiency.
"When you think about the fact that, last financial year, the Eastern Cape Department of Education again did not spend its infrastructure budget. This is an age-old problem if you go back in history, you will go as far back as 2015."
"Surely after all this time we can deal with the efficiency, the problems that are raised every time is we do not have people that can do X and we don't have people that can do...now those people can be hired, you don't have to employ everybody but to have the money and to hand the money back and then to have an incident like this is criminal," Manuel said.
"It says to us that our inefficiency is costing lives, how can we hand back money for infrastructure when children sit in classrooms where the ceilings are falling down, that don't have ceilings. We haven't repaired them. It speaks to a department whose inefficiency is actually leading to the deaths of children."