When the issues around the Department of Basic Education's new Foundational Phase textbook catalogue were unpacked in Parliament on Tuesday, it became clear how cutthroat the industry competition really is.

Some educational publishing companies are prepared to engage in bribery, collusion and deception to get their books on to the Department of Basic Education's (DBE's) school textbook catalogues, parliamentarians were told on Tuesday.

The claim was made when the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education met to discuss the DBE's controversial new Foundational Phase catalogue.

MPs expressed strong concern in the wake of reporting by News24 that implied that the success of a new catalogue entrant, Lighthouse Publishers, was irregular.

Daily Maverick has since reported that in four consecutive articles on the subject, News24 failed to disclose that its sister company Via Afrika was one of the rival publishers who bid for the same catalogue.

Any wrongdoing by either Lighthouse or DBE officials has yet to be proven. But from the evidence of the meeting, a new company winning an unexpected amount of coveted slots on the catalogue was going to lead to questions being asked.

Two for the price of one

Educational publishing companies are overwhelmingly dependent on government textbook contracts for their revenue, with one publisher telling Daily Maverick, on condition of anonymity, that he estimated these textbook sales amount to 90% of his company's total business....