The Department of Basic Education has given assurances that the issuing of three Occupational Health and Safety Act prohibition notices at the Government Printing Works’ (GPW’s) Tshwane building will not affect the matric exams.

There were fears that the national senior certificate examination, which will start next Tuesday, would be adversely affected by the prohibition notices issued this week, forcing the GPW to halt operations at the facility on Bosman Street in Tshwane.

The Department of Employment and Labour’s inspection and enforcement services (IES) cited poor ventilation and the presence of chemicals in the litho area threatening or likely to threaten the health and safety of employees among the reasons for issuing the notices.

The IES stopped the use of all emergency steel staircases due to rust and being unsafe for usage as well as the use of the basement, binding area and printing room, which were highlighted as critical and affected by water ingress and flooding and posing significant risk from exposed electrical cables or wiring.

The GPW is responsible for printing national senior certificate examination question papers, visas, birth certificates, Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences Act notices and government gazettes, among other key state documents.

However, Basic Education spokesperson Lukhanyo Vangqa allayed the fears, saying it needed to be made clear that only one province prints its question papers at GPW and that is Limpopo.

He said the remaining eight provincial education departments take responsibility for their own printing in their respective provinces.

“GPW has two buildings in Pretoria where GPW conducts its printing for the various government departments. The one building is on Bosman Street and the second building is on Visagie Street.

“The Department of Labour notice only affects the Bosman Street building but the Limpopo papers are printed at the Visagie Street building and that building continues to operate as normal,” Vangqa explained.

He added that the printing of the Limpopo papers was proceeding according to plan and that the Department of Basic Education monitoring team, led by a chief director, was at the GPW on Wednesday, October 15.

“We can confirm that printing of the Limpopo exam papers is proceeding uninterrupted,” said Vangqa.

Umalusi, the council for quality assurance in general and further education and training, this week said in auditing the state of readiness of the system adequacy of security measures in relation to printing, packaging, storage and distribution of question papers was among its various focus areas.

But due to the security protocols concerning the printing, packaging, storage and distribution of question papers and associated materials being classified and treated with strict confidentiality, Umalusi was unable to provide details.

“We can just indicate that Umalusi is satisfied with the plans that are in place to manage the entire value chain,” the council stated.

loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za

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