The Primary and Secondary Education ministry has accused Treasury of stalling the commencement of the construction of Mahatshula Secondary School in Bulawayo as it has not released the funds for the project.
Primary and Secondary Education deputy minister Angeline Gata, however, told the National Assembly recently that government has acquired building material for the school.
She had been asked to inform Parliament when the school construction would begin.
“The building materials for Mahatshula Secondary School are now available and construction will commence once the ministry has finalised its arrangement with contractors,” she said.
In an interview with Southern Eye yesterday, Bulawayo provincial education director Bernard Mazambane said the preliminaries for construction were complete.
He, however, indicated that the ministry did not have funds to hire workers.
“We have the building materials for the school we are waiting to construct. We are, however, waiting for the Treasury to provide funding in order for us to hire contractors. We had applied for the release of funds, but Treasury reversed all the money,” Mazambane said.
He said materials were taken from another project to the site in Mahatshula.
“We had to transfer materials from the Cowdray Park PSIT project to Mahatshula,” he said, adding that construction was long overdue.
“We were supposed to have started long back, (but) nothing can start if there is no money to pay the contractors to build the school.”