School without power since holidays
Staff demand EMLM comes up with plan
Parents and teachers of St Theresa’s Primary School have called on the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality (EMLM) technical services department to consider a contingency plan that will prevent teaching from being interrupted during power outages.
The school had been without power since the mid-year break.
On Friday last week teachers, accompanied by parents, skipped school to get the technical services department and top officials Zwelethemba Nkosinkulu and portfolio head Mhlangabezi Mangcotywa to engage with them on when the power would be restored.
The meeting took place at the technical services offices in Prince Alfred Street.
The teachers said they had tried numerous times to get the municipality to address the problem but had received conflicting responses.
This was despite an up-todate electricity bill.
“Some of us were told the problem was being attended to, others were told the power issue was yet to be attended to,”a teacher said.
In the meeting, a parent asked if there was a contingency plan since the director had said it would be difficult to give them a timeframe on when the problem would be resolved.
However, Nkosinkulu said there was no contingency plan in place.
But the parent insisted: “If you are unable to give us a timeframe, give us a contingency plan. If you do not have one, we will advise you. Should the power not be back by Monday, the municipality must provide a generator to enable teachers to work.”
Another teacher complained: “Our school is without lights. It is vulnerable to break-ins.
“We have to ask the members of the community to keep an eye on it.”
Another teacher protested that S&R, a company that had been contracted to repair the power fault, had left without fixing it.
However, Nkosinkulu said a contractor from East London would do the work.
When asked about local contractors, he said they did not have the capacity to do the job.
He would not entertain the subject anything further due to one of the local contractor’s names being mentioned.
Both Mangcotywa and Nkosinkulu apologised for the inconvenience caused to the school.
Mangcotywa said: “We cannot commit to a generator because it is not up to us to make decisions about the finances of the institution. But we can think of an alternative of perhaps redirecting the school to another line.”
Nkosinkulu said the municipality had the capacity to manage the electricity issues in Enoch Mgijima.
He said: “We are doing our best to address electricity issues.
“We have bought a cherry picker truck and a crane truck which will be handed over soon.”
Teachers said the power was restored on Tuesday.