(Petaling Jaya, Tuesday): Yesterday, it was reported that schools are badly hit because of the Education Ministry’s delay in dispensing annual grants for the administration of schools.
Schools in Selangor and the Federal Territory have yet to receive theirs, while those in the other states were given only 50% and have been promised the remainder in July.
Previously, the allocations, known as per-capita-grant and used to pay utility bills, administrative and maintenance costs and stationary purchases, were given by March at the latest.
This delay in dispensing annual grants is affecting the general administration capacity of the schools, and many schools run the risk of having their electricity, water and telephone supplies cut by the service providers who have attached reminder notices in their bills.
It is no use the Education Director-General Datuk Dr. Shukor Abdullah asking the schools heads to be patient when schools face the risk of having their water, electricity and telephone supplies cut because of the non-payment of the bills for over three months and an immediate solution must be found. What the Education Ministry should do is to secure the agreement of all the utility service providers that they would not cut off supplies to any schools because of the Education Ministry’s financial problems.
What Malaysians cannot understand or accept is that while the government is running out of funds to provide basic government services, it still could pay RM1 billion to Indonesia as first payment of part of its RM3.9 billion (US$1 billion) loan.
The Cabinet should reconsider its loan to Indonesia for Malaysia is in no position to help bail out any other country when we are unable to bail out ourselves.
(2/6/98)