UPDATE: Department of Education apologises to school

The Gauteng Department of Education has apologised to the staff and pupils of Melpark Primary School after they had their water cut off by the City of Joburg on 7 September for non-payment .

Water at the school has been re-opened after reaching an agreement with the school to pay off the account.

The water cut saw around 100 Grade R children go without water for several days, crossing over the road to use some water.

Principal of the school Nalini Padayachee said they discovered that the school had two different plot numbers and they never received an account statement from the City, but had been making regular payments on the one account for which they did receive monthly statements.

“We have so far paid R40 000 in two instalments and have made arrangements to pay the account as we are scared that our water will get cut off again,” Padayachee said.

She pointed out that up until now the City had failed to provide an adequate invoice statement reflecting the water usage of the school and has seen one statement.

In that statement, there is an amount of R92 000 debited to the school’s account – for what and why she could not say.

“There is something wrong with the way the school is being charged and without a fully comprehensible statement of account we don’t know why our account is so high,” she said.

She pointed out that the Department of Education had indicated that they would use some of the money the school received as subsidies to pay off the outstanding amount, but added that this will not benefit the pupils as there will be less money available to fulfil their educational needs.. Spokesperson for the Gauteng Department of Education Phumla Sekhonyane apologised on behalf of the Department to the pupils, educators and staff of Melpark Primary School for any inconveniences that might have been caused by the water cut and assured them that both the school and the Department were moving speedily to resolve this matter.

Sekhonyane pointed out, however, that Melpark Primary School is a Section 21 school, which meant that the school was responsible for managing its own finances and maintaining its own infrastructure using the budget allocated to them by the Department.

“When the Department learned about the water cut at the school, the Department engaged with the school and proposed a bailout due to the serious inconvenience the disconnections would cause to the delivery of teaching and learning. However, the school had already made a commitment to make payment arrangements with the City of Joburg Municipality,” Sekhonyane added.

Kgamanyane Maphologela, the City’s group finance director of customer communications and stakeholder management said that the school owned two stands that are opposite each other, and noted that the City had only been receiving one payment for the one account.

“There are two schools on the premises and each have their own account and have their individual stand numbers but had one owner. Now it look as if the customer over a period of time has only been making payment on the one account and neglecting the other,” Maphologela said.

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