Pretoria – Supply chain services company UTi has assured the Department of Basic Education that no schools were adversely affected by the shredding of 100 school workbooks from the 2012 school-year at its Empangeni warehouse.
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga had earlier this week sent a team to the province to conduct an investigation, following the discovery of dumped workbooks/textbooks in Empangeni, 149km away from Durban. The discovery was made by the KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Education, Senzo Mchunu, following a tip-off.
In a statement on Friday, the department said that UTi had confirmed that the workbooks had been assessed by local management to be irreparably damaged and had apologised to the department for the incident.
“[The company] said no schools had been adversely affected by the incident, and that furthermore there was no evidence of “criminality” or “corruption”. The company said it was regrettable that statements to the media and media coverage made references to non-delivery of workbooks and “corruption”,” said the department.
The company said once it had identified the schools for which the damaged books were intended, the workbooks were replaced and UTi delivered them directly to the schools concerned. This replacement was done within two weeks, and no schools were compromised by non-delivery.
The department said that the company was working with the relevant authorities to provide the minister, MEC and other relevant parties with an official report as soon as was practically possible.
Once UTi’s internal investigation is complete, disciplinary steps will be taken if necessary.
UTi was appointed as a service provider to a Joint Venture (JV) with Paarl Media and Lebone Litho, for the distribution of school workbooks. It delivered 5 578 550 workbooks in KwaZulu-Natal in 2012, and have delivered 5 122 660 to the province for the 2013 school year.
The contracted service levels for these distributions were exceeded as confirmed by external auditors appointed by the DBE.
The company has also assured the public and the department that it will reinforce its commitment to following the strict distribution protocols already in place. – SAnews.gov.za
