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Four Eastern Cape Department of Education officials and a businessman are facing charges of corruption, fraud, theft, and contravention of the Public Finance Management Act for R59 million meant for schoolbooks. Under the pretence that schools were adequately resourced with textbooks, they decided without permission from the National Treasury to shift and use 80% of the budget for the procurement of supplementary resource material, mainly IT equipment and photocopiers.

As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, a project to use ZAR866 million (US$60 million) to build a state-of-the-art technical and vocational education and training college in one of South Africa’s poorest townships could not proceed. The project was stopped by the Minister of Higher Education, but the money has not been returned to the National Treasury or accounted for in accordance with the Public Finance Management Act regulations.

Universities and business schools are grappling with the ethics curricula they teach to professionals and future professionals. This follows damning revelations of state capture involving accountants, auditors and consultants at major international companies. The dean of the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management at the University of the Witwatersrand, said every crisis offers an opportunity. “There is a lot of debate within the senior executive team… we are working with two [international] economists, to develop context in the economics curriculum, it brings to the fore issues of power… so students think about economic systems with a historical perspective”.