The Mercury
Department of Basic Education director-general, Bobby Soobrayan.
Durban – Workbooks intended for KwaZulu-Natal pupils have been found burnt, shredded or gathering dust in the eMpangeni warehouse of UTi, a national distribution company.
On Wednesday, Department of Education officials made the “shocking” discovery that several boxes of current numeracy and literacy workbooks, for primary and high school classes in the eMpangeni area (Uthungulu district), had not been delivered.
MEC Senzo Mchunu also said that boxes of books had been found dumped on a farm in Tongaat earlier this year.
UTi is contracted to the national Department of Basic Education to distribute workbooks. The firm’s Limpopo contract is among matters that are being examined by the public protector’s office in its investigation into the delivery of textbooks to schools in that province.
The company’s links to Lebone Litho Printers have stirred controversy.
In January 2011, the Mail Guardian newspaper reported that the Department of Basic Education director-general, Bobby Soobrayan, was engaged to the daughter of a director of Lebone Litho Printers’ sister company, Lebone Group Holdings, when the contract was awarded for the 2010 national workbook.
Soobrayan and Lebone denied any conflict of interest. The embattled director-general has since ended his relationship with his fiancée.
In June last year, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced that she had accepted an offer from UTi to help distribute books in Limpopo after the EduSolutions contract was cancelled. But it has been alleged that UTi was used to put Lebone in a position to manage the emergency intervention plan in Limpopo.
Motshekga’s department confirmed to the Mail Guardian that there was an understanding between Lebone and UTi to deliver workbooks.
On Wednesday, The Mercury asked the Department of Basic Education whether, in its investigations into the undelivered eMpangeni workbooks, it had taken into account that UTi and its ties to Lebone (and its ties to Soobrayan) had been questioned.
Department spokesman Panyaza Lesufi said the public protector was investigating all allegations relating to the contract.
Lesufi said a team of managers were on their way to KwaZulu-Natal to investigate.
“The department is worried about this turn of events. If our investigators can confirm misconduct, the contract of the service provider will be immediately terminated.”
The Public Service Commission is probing the “indecisiveness” of Soobrayan in responding to a warning by textbook publishers in 2011 that the Limpopo Education Department had not yet placed its 2012 orders.
The Mercury has not been able to reach Soobrayan for comment. UTi declined to comment on the eMpangeni workbook issue.
leanne.jansen@inl.co.za
The Mercury
