KwaZulu-Natal Education intervenes on schools owing municipalities

The Department of Education in KwaZulu-Natal is concerned about the increase in the number of schools that owe municipalities exorbitant amounts of money on their water and electricity  accounts. In some instances, this leads to municipalities cutting off the provision of water and electricity due to the inability of schools to pay their bills.

Upon zooming in on this matter, the department realised that in some cases it is schools themselves who ignore their bills until the money owed escalates to millions, as it is the case in  some  schools. 

The Department also discovered that many affected schools are those located  in communities where illegal electricity and water connection is rife. In 2019, the department provided some relief to some schools, over and above the norms and standards, where a total of R 48 million was paid to Ethekwini Municipality alone.

A further R 30 million is going to be paid this year to those school whose norms and standards are too low and are genuinely unable to pay. 

The department urge school principals to exercise sound management practices and not to allow a situation where bills are not paid on time because this irresponsible behaviour by some principals leads to the disruption of  teaching  and learning when municipalities  decide to cut their services. The  most affected  schools are in Umlazi and Pinetown Districts, which  are under  Ethekwini  Municipality. 

The department requests all school principals to engage  municipalities and make arrangements  to  pay outstanding fees. “We urge communities to cooperate with us in dealing with this matter by stopping to utilise services meant for schools and for those who are aware of cases where illegal connection takes place to report the matter.

We are going to be very strict to school principals who abdicate their management responsibilities of ensuring that municipal services are paid for. As a Department we provide norms and standards for such purposes and we expect School Management Teams to be responsible in this regard,” said MEC Kwazi Msehengu.