Several schools in eMalahleni started the new school term in the ‘dark’.
Emalahleni Municipality disconnected their electricity because of arrears accounts.
The Department of Public Works and the Department of Education is now on the red carpet because the municipality disconnected the electricity as part of their revenue enhancement campaign.
“We did give the green light for power to be cut to schools. We have communicated with the different departments reprimanding them to pay their arrears accounts, but it fell on deaf ears,” said local municipal spokesperson Mr Lebo Mofokeng.
Mr Tius Cronje, chairman of the Technical High School’s governing body said the school was notified of the power cut on April 4.
“We spent two hours at the municipality trying to resolve the matter. Unfortunately, the power was cut at 15:00 the same afternoon.”
He said the school did receive an email from the Department of Public Works wherein they wrote they are waiting for feedback from ‘higher up’.
“We started the new school term on a generator that is costing a minimum of R5 000 a day. This is totally unacceptable,” Cronje lashed out.
The municipality called on all the government departments to settle their outstanding bills.
WITBANK NEWS reached out to the relevant departments for more on this story.
What is your opinion about this situation?
Please send us an email to info@witbanknews.co.za or phone us on 013 656 2490
· For more breaking and community news, visit Witbank News’ website www.witbanknews.co.za
· For more news and articles, like WITBANK NEWS on Facebook
