Education bosses in the Eastern Cape addressed parliament on Friday on allegations of a case of sexual violation at a school in Matatiele. A seven-year old girl from Bergview College was allegedly raped in October last year. The rape of ‘Cwecwe’ only made news headlines after her mother went to a podcast to complain about the slow pace of justice. The portfolio committee on basic education says it will conduct an oversight visit of the college in Matatiele in the coming weeks as it is not satisfied with the explanation it received.
The head of education in the Eastern Cape, Sharon Maasdorp, told parliamentarians that the department heard about the case on the 14th of October through a whistleblower. The school principal, according to Maasdorp, was aware of the case but did not report it to the circuit manager until the meeting they had on the 19th of October. Jaco Pieterse, the school principal told the department that he reported the incident at the Thuthuzela Care Centre and SAPS, but no trace of this could be found at the time by the department.
Maasdorp told the committee that the school principal and the school governing body did not attend a stakeholder meeting with the department’s officials and the parents on the 11th of December.
The Eastern Cape education department served the school with notice of deregistration “as a tool” to force the school and the school principal to cooperate.
Lack of cooperation and racism allegations at the school
Fundile Gade, the MEC for education in the Eastern Cape said that deregistration was the only tool they had at their disposal to deal with the matter. He told parliamentarians that there were serious gaps in regulation and provisions for private schools in the country. “When we went for deregistration we were creating space for other departments to come on board on this case. We thought the department of justice was going to come in as it was clear that the school principal was defeating the ends of justice by refusing to do the DNA test and that did not happen,” said Gade.
The caretaker and the school driver, according to Gade, have been cooperating with law enforcement agencies while the school principal has not.
According to Gade, the school suspended the caretaker who is “an African” and cooperated with law enforcement agencies by providing a DNA sample. “This white gentleman has not cooperated up until today and the board sees it fit to suspend the caretaker. So, I’m saying whether we like it or not, there are racial connotations in this matter beyond the legalities; there are racial undertones that need to be entertained,” he said.
The school principal, Jaco Pieterse is represented by AfriForum. In a letter written to the provincial police commissioner by the leader of the Afrikaner lobby group’s private prosecutorial unit, Gerrie Nel, the child was most likely not assaulted at Bergview College, where she was a pupil, but it was more likely at a party.
The circuit chief director, Monwabisi Mbangeni told parliament that the school board is all white and the school has 665 learners from grade R to grade 12 who are all black. The school has 35 qualified educators, registered with the South African Council for Educators. They levelled allegations of racism against the principal that the department was investigating before Cwecwe’s rape interrupted the process.
Update on the case by SAPS
In the six months of the police’s investigation into the case of a sexual violation of ‘Cwecwe’, no foreign DNA has been found.
A medical doctor and a social worker examined her, as directed by the police procedure for a case report of such a nature. No foreign DNA was found. The investigation continued, until the docket reached the senior state prosecutor, and in November 2024, they decided not to prosecute.
According to Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu, the reason for this decision was due to a lack of evidence. While delivering an update on the case to the nation in Tshwane on Friday, Mchunu described Cwecwe’s case as “complex”.
“DNA is critical when matters of this nature are handled. And with the course of time, three suspects emerged. This then required further DNA testing to be done so that we could see whether information could be drawn from the DNA results of these person,” he said. Despite the ongoing investigative efforts by the police, no arrests have been made.
Two of the other complex elements Mchunu noted is how the initial docket was prepared and the absence of witnesses in the case. “The matter had firstly been handled by an investigating officer stationed at the Matatiele Police Station, then was transferred to a brigadier at the provincial office before being assigned to the current investigating officer and the docket could have been better prepared,” said Mchunu. A “dedicated officer” was then deployed on the matter.
“The case is without witnesses, it involves a minor, and there is no DNA that has been completed. These are the reasons why this case remains complex,” Mchunu concluded. He also announced that in this past week 259 rape suspects were arrested.
