Dodgy dealings in Education Department have come to light

Hundreds of millions of rand cannot be accounted for; hundreds of pupils go hungry, and some don’t receive textbooks on time; and ghost employees continue to draw salaries from the Limpopo Education Department. These are some of the shenanigans uncovered by the Auditor-General in the provincial Education Department. The A-G blames Benny Boshielo, who was in charge of the department until he mysteriously resigned at the beginning of this month. The shocking revelations are contained in the A-G’s audit findings. In several schools, textbooks were delivered two months after schools reopened in January. “(Delivery) of textbooks is outsourced to external service provider, Edu Solution(sic), and it only started distributing books in February 2011.” EduSolutions is trading as PTY Trade 73 (Pty) Ltd. This company, according to the A-G, was awarded a tender worth R301 million to procure and distribute textbooks between August 2010 and July 2013. The A-G found that the company began to deliver books in February, and the last book was delivered on March 16 this year.

Moosa Ntimba, the company’s executive director, said his firm began to procure textbooks only in October last year. “By the time the department finished with its adjudication process around October, it was already late. We should have started procuring textbooks from publishers in March (last year),” he said. The A-G also found undelivered stationery at three warehouses, one of which is used by EduSolutions. But Ntimba said his company has nothing to do with stationery. “We deliver textbooks only, no pencils, no (erasers), no stationery,” he said. Teachers’ union Sadtu’s provincial secretary, George Modumela, said it was unacceptable for pupils to receive textbooks late, and that this was delaying their lessons. An unnamed company has also failed to deliver adequate food to several schools. The A-G identified three schools in the Sekhukhune district, where half of the pupils had not been given meals on the days auditors visited them. The company had not informed the principal why it had failed to deliver food. The SA Human Rights Commission said it was disturbing to hear that pupils didn’t get food. “How does one enjoy human dignity if one did not eat?” asked the commission’s Limpopo manager, Jeff Nkuna.

In February, Education MEC Dickson Masemola announced that R829.6m had been set aside to feed pupils. Yesterday, Masemola could not be reached for comment. The A-G also raised concern about Boshielo’s failure to provide auditors with tender documents relating to contracts worth R349m, in accordance with the Public Finance Management Act. Boshielo:

• Failed to submit tender documents of 14 companies that benefited from multimillion-rand tenders for unknown services
• Submitted files with incomplete and missing bid documents relating to nine separate companies that collectively benefited from tenders worth R208m.
• Failed to verify with the National Treasury database whether company directors had been prohibited to do business with the state, before awarding tenders
• Failed to provide the A-G with copies of the identity documents of two ghost employees, whose names are known to The Star
• Has done nothing about employees who continue to draw salaries from their previous departments while working for Education.

Boshielo refused to comment on queries raised by the A-G.