The Municipal Council of Mbabane (MCM) has conducted inspections at 36 schools around the city, leading to the temporary closure of National Baptist Pre-School.
About two weeks ago, over 10 liquor outlets in Mbabane were closed by the municipal council because their applications to have their licences renewed had not been approved, as the outlets did not comply with certain provisions of the Liquor Licensing Act, 2023, which empowers the council to regulate land use for business operations.
The MCM Information and Public Relations Officer, Lucky Tsabedze, confirmed that National Baptist Pre-School was closed by the council. He said 36 schools were inspected in the period between June and July 2025.
He said schools are closed if there are serious public health and safety violations observed during inspection, including poor storage of hazardous material (asbestos), poor food hygiene management, poor learning environments as well as poor housekeeping.
He said these conditions posed a risk to learners and staff and were in contravention of the Public Health Act, 1969; Public Health (Food Hygiene) Regulations, 1973; Occupational Health and Safety Act, 2001 and the Waste Regulations, 2000.
ALSO READ | Woman (22) Brutally Killed After Ending Relationship
Tsabedze added that there was no particular issue that triggered the inspections, as the council has a programme called ‘Environmental Sanitation, Occupational Health and Safety’, where all schools in the city are routinely inspected biannually.
He stated that National Baptist Pre-School had a pending notice from November 11, 2025, which required a follow-up inspection by the council.
He added that the council discovered that some schools had poor storage of hazardous material (asbestos), poor food hygiene management, poor learning environments as well as poor housekeeping.
Tsabedze said inspections were completed in the second and third quarter (July–December 2025) of the 2025–2026 financial year. He therefore stated that the aforementioned routine inspections were complete and would not be undertaken for the rest of the 2025–2026 financial year.
He, however, mentioned that inspections informed by complaints would still be attended to.
“Only National Baptist was closed, as they were given a notice on November 1, 2025 to fix deviations, and when a follow-up inspection was conducted, they were found not to be compliant.
“However, it is important to note that after they attended to some of the deviations, council conducted an inspection to verify progress of pending issues. The council subsequently wrote a letter to National Baptist to instruct the school to resume operations while working on the outstanding deviations,” he said.
Tsabedze added that the council has since given the school a period of three months to fix the outstanding issues.
He said if a closed school was to be found operating after the official closure order, this would constitute non-compliance with a lawful directive issued under the Public Health Act, 1969 and other applicable legislation.
One parent who has a child enrolled at National Baptist Pre-School took to social media to ask other parents about the way forward following the closure.
The parent expressed frustration, noting that they had not been given a date for the resumption of classes while municipal inspections were still ongoing.
She complained that pupils had been at home for two days, while two weeks earlier learners had attended classes on Tuesday and were then told to remain at home.
She said when they returned last week, they were given letters on Thursday informing them of the temporary closure of the school.
According to a letter shared with this publication by one of the parents, the school informed parents that, due to instructions from the municipal council, it would be closed temporarily with immediate effect.
The letter stated that the closure was due to ongoing municipal council inspections. The school apologised to parents for the inconvenience and said they would be updated accordingly.
When the pre-school was contacted for comment, a secretary who asked not to be named confirmed that the school had been temporarily closed but had since reopened and pupils would return today.
