Mandela has raised US $31.5 million

An audit currently being conducted to determine exactly how much money former president Nelson Mandela has raised for schools and clinics in South Africa suggests show that the 82 year-old has coaxed more than R250m (US $31.5 million) out of wealthy companies and individuals since 1992, ‘Business Day’ reported on Thursday. His office says the amount used to build at least 120 schools from scratch and to upgrade existing schools and clinics, is a conservative estimate.

The national education department said it “loved” the assistance Mandela offered in dealing with its severe infrastructural backlog at schools. Charles Sheppard, the director of physical planning, said the provinces had been struggling since the mid-1990s to free money for non-personnel expenditure. Some provinces still spend more than 90 percent of their budgets on teachers’ salaries. “We have a definite need for all the aid we can get,” he said. Japan and the European Union (EU) were the department’s biggest donors, Sheppard said.