Angie 'moves' to Limpopo

BASIC Education Minister Angie Motshekga has cancelled all her engagements, including overseas trips and ANC commitments, in a bid to clear her image and deliver books to Limpopo.

Motshekga wrote to the ANC instructing it not to deploy her in the next four weeks. The same request was extended to Parliament. This means Motshekga, who is also president of the ANC Women's League, will miss the annual Women's Day celebrations.

Motshekga is said to have relocated to Limpopo for the next four weeks. She has been engaging principals each morning on some of the problems at schools.

She was scheduled to travel to China in the next few weeks where she was to hold meetings with her counterpart on the introduction of Information and Communications Technology systems at schools.

Her spokesman Panyaza Lesufi said yesterday that Motshekga was now concentrating on Limpopo. He said her recovery plan had so far yielded dividends as all schools had received study material in all subjects, except Siswati and Xitsonga. The books were sourced from other schools that had extra books.

Lesufi said she had also settled a R600-million debt owed to all service providers whose contracts with the provincial education department were legitimate and guaranteed teachers their salaries.

Lesufi said a call centre established on Monday was up and running. This was to ensure that principals had a direct link to the minister.

"The minister has summoned all MECs to a meeting today where they will be instructed to order books for next year. These must be at schools by the end of November," he said.

Lesufi said the department would from now on order books directly from about 700 publishers, instead of using contractors. National Treasury has agreed to give the department R40-million for the province's catch-up programme.

The textbook crisis sparked public outrage, with calls for her to be fired. Her party has called for criminal charges to be laid against whoever is found guilty in this matter.