GEORGE TOWN, May 15 — Utility bills are a constant headache for Francis Loh, who has to constantly look for funds to make sure St Xavier’s Institution (SXI) — where he is the school’s board chairman — will continue to have power supply.

And with just a RM2,000 monthly federal aid package, he and his board are running out of ideas on how they are going to make up the monthly shortfall in their utility bills.

“We are only partially aided and the federal government only assists with a RM2,000 fund to pay for our utility bills, but our monthly utility bills are between RM5,000 to RM6,000,” he said.

He added that next month, SXI may have to fork out RM14,000 for its utility bill as Tenaga Nasional had asked the school to pay for another month’s deposit.

“On top of that, we are also charged GST for the bill,” he said.

There are about 20 mission schools in the state, all of which are partially aided by the federal government.

Loh said St Xavier’s primary school is often strapped for cash and had to depend on donations and allocations for most of its extra expenses such as the recent need to upgrade its computer lab until the state stepped in to help.

The school received a RM35,000 allocation from the state government to upgrade the lab.

Loh said the least that the federal government can do is exempt them from paying GST on their utility bills and other expenses such as maintenance work.

When contacted, Penang Chinese and Mission Schools Affairs Coordinating Committee chairman Chong Eng said all national type schools, including mission and vernacular schools, have to raise their own funds for most of the school’s expenses.

The state government allocates funds to assist these schools annually.

“All these schools have to raise funds to pay for any repair works, upgrading, renovation or installation of infrastructure in the school grounds and they also have to pay for the GST now,” Chong said.

She said the state had assisted these schools in writing to Putrajaya to appeal for them to be exempted from having to pay GST.

Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng had also appealed to Putrajaya to exempt all schools from having to pay GST for any of their projects as these are all for the school’s students and not for profit.