Africa-Press – South-Africa. DURBAN – SCHOOLS in the Pinetown District could struggle to meet the needs of their pupils this year because of a severe cut to the funds they are allocated for day-to-day school operations.
The Department of Education Pinetown District Office has issued a circular, warning schools under it that owe eThekwini Municipality for services that they could lose 30% of their allocation this financial year.
The money will be sent by the department directly to the municipality to reduce the multi-million rand debt.
The directive has outraged some principals who argued that the money they were getting from the department was already too little and did not cover their expenses.
They warned that this could affect the schools’ ability to provide stationery for their pupils.
A December budget statement from the municipality detailed who was indebted to the municipality. It showed that schools were among the entities that owed the council for services. The debtors included provincial government departments, Ingonyama Trust and the city’s own entities.
The report showed that as of December last year, Section 21 schools owed about R232 287 808.
The budget statement said for Section 21 schools, “A payment amounting to R9.9m has been received and debt still outstanding will be settled once approval of payment has been processed by the department.
“The Department of Education has indicated it will pay 30% of the debt. The prepaid project is ongoing, electricity is waiting for stock. Process of sending final demands has been initiated, if no response is received summonses will follow,” it said.
A circular from the Pinetown district director sent last month to school principals and members of the governing bodies demanded that all the affected Section 21 schools produce a record of their municipal bills.
“Schools should produce proof they paid their municipal bills or statements showing the balance owing. An instruction was received from the head office that schools that are in huge debt with the municipality will not receive their 30% (allocation) for the 2020-21 financial year,” said the circular.
A principal speaking on condition of anonymity said this would destroy some schools: “The department is warning that it will punish schools that are in debt with the municipality, they are passing their responsibility to us. The money they give us is too little, for example we get about R200 per pupil, and the total amount is about 80 000 per year, about R60 000 of that will go to stationery and other educational needs.
“The bulk of the money we need for our operations we have to raise ourselves. We have to pay extra for teachers, pay for security and cleaners. These are all things the department should be paying for.”
Since March last year, we have been unable to raise funds and parents object when we try to increase school fees.
Department spokesperson Muzi Mahlambi said this was about facilitating the payment to the municipality. He said there was a serious impact when schools didn’t pay as the services got cut.
“The spirit of the circular is that we know that some of the schools might not be able to pay the municipality because their funds are depleted due to other commitments, they might have overdrafts they pay for,” he said.
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