“That’s a lie, that’s a complete fabrication, I would like to see how they came to that figure,” Basil Manuel, president of the national professional teachers’ organisation of South Africa told the Mail & Guardian last week. “Even if that figure is based on the number of schools who actually sent in application forms for pupil transport for their pupils [and got it] … that’s a very generous number.”

The presentation made earlier this month by the two departments to the portfolio committee on basic education stated that “about 4.2% of all learners qualified for learner transport, but of those, only 71% were being transported, with most of those not benefiting being in the rural provinces”.