Zimpapers Logo

Loveness Bepete Chronicle Reporter
BULAWAYO City Council-owned schools are owed slightly over $1 million in unpaid school fees by parents, and now the municipality says it is engaging debt collectors in a bid to recover the money.

The government also owes council schools $81,128 from its Basic Education Assistance Module (Beam) which benefits children from poor families.

The city’s Director of Housing and Community Services, Isaiah Magagula, said due to the non-payment of the fees, council schools were faced with inadequate resources as only $296,095 was collected by end of September for this year’s third school term from the council’s 30 schools.

The 30 schools have an enrollment of 37,988, with an average of 1,266 pupils per school.

As a way of recovering the money, the council schools have engaged debt collectors although the move has been described as ineffective.

Magagula told a council meeting:

“It had also been noted that quite a number of schools had already engaged debt collectors to assist in the efforts to ensure more parents paid their dues. This had not yet yielded much success at the moment.”

He said it was difficult for schools to recover fees from former students who would have written their final public examinations.

“Sadly, some terminating pupils still owed council in terms of fees for this and previous terms. Once these pupils left school, it became difficult for schools to recover such arrears,” added Magagula.

He, however, applauded Beam for its efforts in settling its debt.

“Beam payments improved slightly as $23,995 for tuition and $21,750 for Parent Teacher Association (PTA) levies had been paid at the end of September. Amounts still to be paid for this and previous terms for Beam pupils at the end of September were $42,605 and $38,523 for tuition and PTA levies respectively,” he said.