Apology
In the article published online about the 11 schools in Mpumalanga which have outstanding accounts with Mbombela Municipality, a photo of a Hoërskool Bergvlam classroom was used as illustration. The photo could have created a misconception that Bergvlam was one of the schools implicated. Hoërskool Bergvlam’s electricity and service accounts with Mbombela Municipality are paid up. The school is not one of the 11 which owe on outstanding municipal accounts. www.lowvelder.co.za apologises to Hoërskool Bergvlam for any inconvenience caused.
MBOMBELA – Eleven schools within Mbombela Local Municipality (MLM) may soon have to operate without electricity.
Should this happen it will have a severe negative impact on thousands of local schoolchildren, hundreds of teachers, administration and maintenance staff at these schools. Lowvelder received a tip-off yesterday morning (Thursday) that schools’ electricity supply might be cut. MLM has confirmed that this is indeed the case.
According to Mr Joseph Ngala, spokesman for MLM, in terms of the municipality’s credit control and debt collection policy, notices have been issued to 11 schools due to a “pending matter of accounts”.
This includes primary and secondary schools in the area.
According to Ngala, schools have been given a period of 14 days to settle outstanding amounts or make acceptable payment arrangements with the municipality, or their power will be switched off.
“Failure to comply with the notices will result in disconnection of services by the municipality,” Ngala said.
The municipality did not want to disclose the names of the schools.
However, Lowvelder, managed to speak to one of the affected schools, and according to an informed source an internal problem at the municipality contributed to the issue.
The source said in the case of their school, there was an “allocation mistake” due to the fact that the municipality’s departments “didn’t communicate” with one another, but added that it was immediately rectified after the school provided the municipality with the appropriate documentation.
“The municipality immediately recognised the problem, apologised and told us that we were never supposed to be on the cut-off list”, the source said.
Lowvelder was furthermore informed that this particular issue might not even be an electricity-bill problem at all, but rather one of property rates and taxes. Ngala replied to a follow-up question regarding this, that outstanding costs involved electricity and refuse removal.
He said the matter was also referred to the Department of Education and that the department was in contact with the affected schools to find a solution to the pending electricity cuts. The department was approached for comment and spokesman, Mr Jasper Zwane, urged schools to make necessary arrangements. He added that support would be provided by the department to assist schools to meet the demands of the municipality.
