EThekwini mulls prepaid meters for schools

THE eThekwini Municipality is toying with the idea of installing prepaid meters in schools that are struggling to pay the municipality a total of R200million in debt for rates and services.

The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education has already consulted some of Durban’s defaulting schools to help them meet their obligations.

Now, the city is looking into installing prepaid meters, starting with schools that have “one phase meters”.

The debt was recorded in a report to the city’s executive committee meeting last week. According to it, the lion’s share of the debt is owed by Section 21 schools, amounting to R194.5m.

Section 21 schools receive funding from the department and are responsible for procuring stationery, textbooks, paying water and lights accounts and undertaking their own maintenance with school fees and fundraising initiatives.

Section 20 schools, which get services and textbooks paid for by the provincial department, owed the municipality just more than R3.7m.

The report stated that the revenue unit was working with the electricity department on the prepaid meter project.

Department spokesperson Kwazi Mthethwa confirmed that they were aware of the outstanding debt.

“We have sat down with some of those schools and are mapping out how to pay the municipality within a short time. The department has already started helping with payments to the municipality where it can,” Mthethwa said.

The city also stated in its report that there were discussions between the Education Department and the provincial treasury about Section 21 schools.

In January, The Mercury reported on some Durban school principals raising concerns that they might be forced to close their schools after municipal officials threatened to disconnect water and electricity due to non-payment by the department.

Meanwhile, according to the report brought to exco, total outstanding debt is R11.9billion. The report stated that the increase in debtors this year was due to the increase in tariffs for services and rates.

“Water over-billing has also contributed to the increase in debtors,” the report said.