RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Par­ents of pupils at­tend­ing the Co­coyea EC­CE Cen­tre have been car­ry­ing bot­tles of wa­ter for their chil­dren to use dur­ing the day, af­ter some­one mys­te­ri­ous­ly emp­tied two 1,000-gal­lon tanks sit­u­at­ed be­hind the com­pound.

School of­fi­cials have told par­ents they have had no ac­cess to the tanks ever since they were bolt­ed down by of­fi­cials of the Co­coyea Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the school on Tues­day, par­ents were seen car­ry­ing gal­lons of wa­ter marked with their chil­dren’s names in­to the school.

Par­ent Bar­bera Williams ex­pressed her frus­tra­tion, say­ing, “We want them to un­lock the tanks so that the school could have ac­cess to wa­ter.”

“This is chil­dren’s lives we talk­ing about. Why should they be suf­fer­ing?” she added.

An­oth­er par­ent, Jas­mine Hen­ry, claimed the wa­ter sup­ply had been sab­o­taged.

“We want to know who clog up the pipes. And who put poi­son near the tank?” Hen­ry said.

Williams said if that was the case, then po­lice should be called in and the tanks should be sani­tised be­fore be­ing filled.

“This is wa­ter we talk­ing about. It’s lit­tle chil­dren, they are in pre-school, they need wa­ter dur­ing the day. How is it that the school have no wa­ter when there are tanks?” Williams ques­tioned.

An­oth­er par­ent, who gave his name as Rawl­ins, said the tanks did not con­nect to be filled au­to­mat­i­cal­ly. He said teach­ers ad­vised par­ents to send wa­ter to the school be­cause the tanks had been dis­con­nect­ed.

School of­fi­cials de­clined com­ment yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, Co­coyea Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil pres­i­dent Leslie Lynch took re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the locks on the tank. He said there has been dis­cord at the school since 2015.

“I was named pub­lic en­e­my num­ber one when I raised con­cerns about this school,” he said.

Lynch al­so said he fills the tanks reg­u­lar­ly but claimed some­one has been drain­ing them. He al­so said af­ter some pipes were bro­ken, the coun­cil de­cid­ed to put a cage around the tanks and place a lock.

“I have been re­port­ing this to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and ask­ing for a meet­ing. I have re­port­ed is­sues to the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty and the po­lice. If noth­ing is done, I will take this fur­ther,” Lynch added.

He said while they wait for as­sis­tance, the coun­cil had agreed to se­cure the tanks, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter they found a bot­tle of Gramox­one near them.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said the min­istry was aware of the is­sue.

“This sit­u­a­tion with the mem­ber of the vil­lage coun­cil has been on­go­ing since the va­ca­tion pe­ri­od. Through the in­ter­ven­tion of the Min­istry of So­cial and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment (MSCD), the sit­u­a­tion was quelled for a time,” Dr Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

She added, “How­ev­er, to­day’s ac­tion is clear­ly an at­tempt to dis­rupt the ser­vices of the school once again.”

The min­is­ter said the MSCD is be­ing en­gaged on the mat­ter and “what­ev­er ac­tion is re­quired to re­turn the school to un­in­ter­rupt­ed func­tion will be tak­en.”