The Blantyre district education office (DEO) has blamed the exceeding of allocated water funding for most schools in the city on Blantyre Water Board (BWB) delay to delink water supply meters from teachers’ houses.
The district education manager’s (DEM’s) remarks follow water disconnection at Henry Henderson Institute (HHI) Primary School since February 26.
In an interview with one of the teachers at the affected schools on Tuesday, The Nation established that all toilets at the school use water as such pupils resorted to relieving themselves in the bush before schools closed on March 22.
Blantyre DEM Ruth Kambali, however, said the water bill for HHI Primary School had already been paid for last week. She also confirmed that many primary schools overspend their allocated funding because staff houses are linked to water meters for schools.
Primary education adviser McArthur Khumbanyiwa said the DEO had paid for the delinking of water meters for Limbe and Chichiri primary schools in June 2012 but there was no progress on the issue.
BWB’s public relations officer Innocent Mbvundula confirmed that the board had received expression of interest from the DEM to delink and put additional meters at Chichiri Primary School and he said the project had been completed successfully.
