Public money is being spent to destroy reading material in a province where children at over 5000 schools do not have textbooks. (Links to photos of books being destroyed can be seen below.) The delivery of books is over seven months late to these schools and a court deadline has been missed.

What is the opportunity cost to the country of so many children going without an education? Or the cost to the lives of these children and their families?

Is this a government that would rather pay someone to destroy perfectly usable books than educate our children?

The Democratic Alliance (DA) believes that nothing less than a full investigation is needed into the destruction of books in Seshego and probably elsewhere in the province, given the Department's admission that it regularly destroys books.

We want to know:

• How much money is being spent to destroy books in Limpopo?
• Who the contractors are who are destroying the books?
• Who from the Education Department sanctioned this practice?

Our site inspection in Seshego found thousands of perfectly usable books, many of which were still in their original packaging. There were also loads of story books that could be used to stock libraries at poor schools with no reading material.

Someone needs to account for this disgrace.

Desiree van der Walt, DA Spokesperson on Education in Limpopo