Picture: (Books in a warehouse) from internet

BY REGINALD KANYANE

EDUCATION and sport development MEC, Wendy Matsemela, reacted with anger after learning material was found in a locked warehouse in Mahikeng.

The MEC strongly warned one of distributors indicating that the department would not allow service providers to sabotage the department’s operations.

Though the material was deemed surplus, Matsemela took exception that nothing had been brought to the department’s attention.

The learning and teaching material was deemed to have been for the 2015 academic year.

“The department has an agreement with distributors and warehouses to safely store learning materials. However we informed them to notify the department if there are surplus materials left. In this particular instance, the distributor did not notify the department of this. We were notified by the whistleblower.

“I was very surprised to hear about the surplus material being locked in the warehouse from the whistleblower. It is not our standing arrangement with the distributors. We launched investigations and indeed found that the material was locked in the warehouse,” she said.

Matsemela added that they were grateful that the material has been recovered.

The material was removed from the warehouse and stored at Ngaka Modiri Molema district education offices.

The MEC quickly allayed concerns that failure of the material to reach schools could have jeopardised learning and teaching.

“We can further confirm that this surplus material did not affect the curriculum delivery in our schools. Furthermore, the department condemns the actions of the distributor. We have reprimanded the affected distributor accordingly,” she said.

-TDN

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