15 Aug 2016

Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Frans Van Der Westhuizen, said South East District Council has been experiencing high bills in some school.Answering a question in Parliament on August 11, he said the council noted the trend and constituted a Task Force in March 2015 to investigate causes of exercise water bills in primary schools.

The task force, he said was also expected to outline the finding and come up with recommendations on the same.He said none of the findings pointed out especially to any school metre servicing individuals, adding the only major anomaly discovered was at St Condard’s Mission School in Ramotswa.

 He said Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) had mistakenly interconnected the pipe lines for the Roman Catholic Church Hall and the Priest’s residential house to the school pipeline as all were within the same premises with the school.

“This meant that instead of both the church hall and Priest’s house having individual metres which will enable WUC to specifically bill them,” he said.

WUC, he said only took the school reading which was at the school entrance whose pipeline fed both the church hall and Priest’s house.

Furthermore, he said the council had engaged WUC to rectify the problem and the bill for the church hall and Priest’s house were separated from the school meter in September 2015.

On the issue of promotion, he said four officers were appointed in the Task Team being principal education secretary, chief administration officer, principal accounts officer, and none of them were denied promotion.

Ramotswa, Member of Parliament Samuel Rantuana, had wanted the Minister to state if he is aware of a report on high water bills at primary schools and that some school metres were servicing individuals while the bill was directed to the schools, what action has been taken based on the advice of the report, and whether it is true that the author of the report has since been denied promotion even when vacancies at the top are available. ENDS