Several Limpopo schools have been instructed by the department of basic education to be silent on the delivery of textbooks, a community leader said on Thursday.

Solanga Milambo visited eight schools in the province to find out if they had received textbooks, he told a briefing in Johannesburg by non-governmental organisation Section27.

"Some of the schools that I went to, mostly the principals and SGBs [school governing bodies], they were told that they mustn't... give us any information regarding the textbooks," he said.

"They were told this by the [Basic Education] Minister [Angie Motshekga]... They were told they are not going to receive any of the other textbooks and they must use what they got."

He said some schools had not received the textbooks they originally ordered.

Limpopo education department former chief financial officer Solly Tshitangano said it would never supply correct information about how many textbooks it had delivered.

"If they are saying that it is correct [in its figures of delivery], let them open all the schools or allow all the principals to talk. All the media houses must go and interview the principals so you can get the truth."

Tshitangano was dismissed from the department after he uncovered tender irregularities in the appointment of EduSolutions.

Section27, Tondani Masiphephetu, the mother of two pupils at a Limpopo school, and Hanyani Thomo Secondary School filed an application in the High Court in Pretoria on 10 September after the department failed to comply with an order to deliver textbooks to all schools in Limpopo.

The case was expected to be heard on 27 September.

In May, the high court ordered the department to deliver the textbooks by 15 June. This was later extended, by mutual agreement, to 27 June.

However some schools had complained that they had still not received any books.