Schools urged to beef up security

An Amanzimtoti school has urged other local schools to safeguard their premises against criminals.

This warning comes after thieves gained access to Amanzimtoti High School’s premises on three different occasions recently.

“The first break-in occurred at the beginning of March. The more recent one was between the 20 and 31 March,” said the school’s head of marketing, Mandy Haggie.

“In the previous break-in they ripped our roof to shreds, causing thousands of rands worth of damage. Apparently copper was previously used in the lining of various sections of our roof and this is what was wanted by our unwanted guests.

“To make matters worse, the culprits were extremely rough when removing the copper and they left gaping holes all over our roof.”

This was only discovered when the school hosted its open day on Thursday, 9 March. “During the evening of our open day programme, it rained heavily. It was extremely embarrassing when suddenly we had water gushing through our light fittings and down our internal walls in a number of places all over the school.

We had just had a local roofing company in to the repair minor leaks three days before the event.

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“Since our open day, we have had another break-in and further damage has been caused. It is important to warn others schools, so that they can put measures in place to prevent them from becoming easy targets,” said Haggie.