Schools collapse as council cancels school fees payments

Primary and Secondary schools under the auspices of the Nkayi Rural District Council are facing severe operational problems as a result of the local authority's decision to cancel all outstanding levies and fees owed by parents in the run up to the July 31, 2013 elections.

Information made available to Bulawayo24 is that the Rural District Council cancelled out all outstanding levies owed by parents to council schools as at June 2013. Council also resolved to peg the maximum levies schools could charge on parents at $15 per term including all tuition fees and School Development levies.

Asked for a clarification on the matter, Council Chairman Mr Sicelo Mpofu said that the previous council indeed passed a resolution in July last year in the run up to the elections to cancel all school fees and levies owed by parents "following a directive from the Minister of Local Government and National Housing Dr Ignatious Chombo." Asked if the directive had only been served on Nkayi RDC as it is the only district in the country that may have cancelled the outstanding levies, councillor Mpofu referred to the circular sent by the Ministry of Local Government ordering councils to cancel out amounts owed by residents and rate payers on Municipal rates and tariffs in the run up to the election.

Chairperson of a School Development Committee (SDC) at a school in Nkayi North said that his committee was failing to do anything for the school following the cancellation of the outstanding fees and pegging of levies by council.

"Since the fees were cancelled we are not able to collect any revenue from parents and all our projects are at a stand still. We can't buy furniture for the kids nor repair even a broken window. Parents have also since the cancellations developed resistance to paying the levies even though council pegged them at only $15 per term," said the dejected chairperson.



The headmaster of the school also echoed his chairperson's sentiments claiming that the school has already failed to participate in a number of activities in the district as it has not been able to pay its affiliation to the National Association of Primary Heads (NAPH) nor other bodies due to lack of funds.

"We have not been able to participate in several district or provincial activities because we have not been able to pay our affiliation and Nkayi kids in general are missing out of all activities," said the Headmaster.

Asked for a comment, the Matabeleland North provincial education director Mrs Boithatelo Mnguni confirmed that the local authority had indeed cancelled the debts and that the cancellation was severely crippling the schools in the district. According to Mguni, the council misinterpreted the Ministry of Local Government's directive to cancel outstanding rates and taxes owed to council and they extended it to include school levies that are not due to council.

"This is a case of a letter seriously misread by council. Council may only have had authority to cancel outstanding debts only on the schools development levy collected by council through the schools not all the levies billed by the schools," said Mguni. "My office was served with a copy of the letter by council to the schools and it indeed directs parents not to pay any levies or fees that were outstanding at that time."

"My office has tried all it can do to intervene in the district but the damage was long back its now up to council to go back and tell the parents to start paying the cancelled debts as it was indeed a mistake by council."

"We have engaged the council administrators and told them to go back to the councillors and sort out the issue as it is seriously crippling the schools. Children from Nkayi are missing out on a number of provincial and inter districts activities because the schools have no money and this will go on for a long time before the schools recover," said Mnguni.

Probed further, council chairman Councillor Mpofu said that the whole issue of the cancellation of the school debts and pegging of levies was a serious political interference into the running of schools by people who were campaigning for election. According to Mpofu who is the MDC T councillor for ward 21, some parents and schools in Nkayi South refused to adhere to the directive as they saw the potential danger with the move he called a campaign gimmick.

"The issue is more prevalent in Nkayi North, here in Nkayi South we resisted that move as we could see that it was just a campaign gimmick by people who were vouching for candidates from the political party that was running with ministers," he said.

Nkayi district is politically divided into two zones, the north is controlled by ZANU PF and the south by MDC T. According to Councillor Mpofu his council has previously set down with Minister of Small to Medium Size Enterprise who is also Member of Parliament for Nkayi North Mrs Sithembiso Nyoni to discuss the issue but the Minister has not shown any signs at having the issue resolved.

"We met with Minister Nyoni to try and discuss the issue of the fees at the schools but she just seemed reluctant to address the matter and so for now Nkayi North is not paying the fees while some schools in Nkayi South are paying and we have left it as it is," he said.

Asked what her office is going to do about the matter, the Provincial Education Director Mrs Mguni said that her office had done all it can within its powers to attend to the issue and its now in the hands of council to go back and clarify the issue with the parents and get them to pay.

"You see it is easy to go around and say don't pay don't pay but now to go back and say no we made a mistake please pay its a difficult task. My office has done all it can and its now in the hands of council to make sure they correct the matter because indeed the schools are suffering and the earlier the matter is sorted the better."

Asked for a comment one parent working at Nkayi Centre who has children at a Nkayi North school Mr Mbongiseni Mlobane said that he finds it difficult to understand how an entire district with technocrats could fail to read and understand a straight forward directive.

"I find it really crazy how a full council which included highly learned people could fail to understand that the Minister of Local Government's directive had nothing to do with SDC and Ministry of Education levies, it just doesn't make sense to me," fumed the parent.

"Nkayi is so full of people that are out to resist development at all cost for their personal glories. Now the schools are suffering, our children are suffering because of people who deliberately chose to manipulate a situation to gain political seats," said the parent. Comment could not be sourced from the Chief Executive Officer of the council nor the District Education Officer who were all said to be out of their offices and were not answering their mobile phones.