Education Rejects 500,000 Textbooks

Jun 11, 2003

THE multi-billion-shilling primary textbooks tender for Cycle Eight went sour after over 500,000 copies were rejected as the education and sports ministry toughens on the supply of substandard books.

By Vision Reporters
THE multi-billion-shilling primary textbooks tender for Cycle Eight went sour after over 500,000 copies were rejected as the education and sports ministry toughens on the supply of substandard books.

Two of the firms - Longhorn Limited and The Monitor Publications had to reprint the rejected copies at their own cost while MK Publishers was penalised US$13,443 (sh27m) as liquidated damages and another US$8,037 (sh16m) for breach of specifications.

The anomalies which caused the three publishers unspecified losses, were unearthed when the ministry decided to carry out a random check of the books delivered to the ministry stores, an official said. Under Cycle Eight, the ministry spent over sh15b on the procurement of over 3.7 million primary schools textbooks.

MK Publishers, whose total contract sum was US$4,064,586 (sh8.2b), reportedly supplied mathematics textbooks for primary four with wrong grain direction on their covers.

“Instead of the grain direction running parallel to the spine, they were perpendicular contrary to the agreed specifications,” a ministry official said.

MK Publishers, one of the leading publishing firms in the country, earned the penalty after disputing the ministry’s technical report that it supplied books with wrong grain direction on the covers.

Francis Lubanga, the ministry’s permanent secretary, said they were forced to send samples of the stock to be tested by PIRA, an internationally respected independent book and paper testing authority based in London.

“The results of the testing confirmed the ministry’s judgement and MK accepted the ruling and agreed to pay appropriate penalties,” Lubanga said.

The ministry’s consultants, IBD, had said specifying the cover grain direction parallel to the spine was important as it prevents cover curling, thus enhancing the books’ durability and lifespan. “Longer book life reduces the annual recurrent costs of textbooks and teacher guide provision to schools,” IBD said in remarks to the ministry.

Longhorn, whose contract sum was US$593,074 (sh1.17b) had 13,928 of its Comprehensive SST Book Four and 3,839 copies of Understanding Mathematics Book Three rejected because of poor gluing of the hinges.

The consultants said the poor gluing would have an impact on the textbook durability, “although good classroom care and conservation practices could reduce the impact of durability to some extent,” they observed.

Longhorn sales and marketing manager David Kibuuka on February 17, 2003 wrote to Lubanga, acknowledging the mistake and agreed to replace the substandard copies.

The Monitor, which was contracted to supply 190,698 copies of SST Book Three at a cost of US$177,587 (sh358m) and 169,826 SST Book Four at US$195,341 (sh394m) had 127,712 copies rejected because they contained erratum stickers.

On October 28, 2002, The Monitor managing director, Wafula Oguttu, wrote to Lubanga acknowledging the errors and accepting to replace the books.

He asked for a grace period of one month, which the ministry accepted.

Lubanga told the recent education sector review workshop in Kampala that the non-conformity with specifications increased storage expenses and delayed the delivery of the books to schools.

“Most of the schools did not have the benefit of using the books during the first term,” he said.

The three publishers are missing from those selected to supply textbooks under Cycle Nine, but Lubanga denied they had been blacklisted.

The firms approved to supply textbooks and teachers’ guides under Cycle Nine include Fountain Publishers, Pearson Education Publishers, Harcourt Education, Macmillan Education Limited and Mukono Bookshop Printing and Publishers.
Ends

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