Cape Town - The ANC in the Western Cape legislature has requested the Public Service Commission to probe the legality of the provincial education department extending the contracts of three service providers for four years.
The Western Cape Education Department’s (WCED) director of the National School’s Nutritional Programme (NSNP), Lindelwa Sopotela, said last month that service providers were contracted for two years to supply schools directly with food stock.
Three suppliers are Boldwen, which covers the Central Karoo, Overberg and the West Coast; Mokgathselwa for the Cape Winelands area; and Peninsula School Feeding Association, which covers the metros, including Central and East schools.
Sopotela was doing a presentation for the Standing Committee on Education about NSNP offered at schools.
“The NSNP is funded by the National Treasury (NT) through a conditional grant to feed 9.6 million needy children a meal every school day.
“The NT allocated R8.5 billion in conditional grant transfers to provinces for the NSNP in the 2022/23 financial year.
The budget allocation for the Western Cape for the 2022/2023 financial year is R451 289 000 to benefit 507 332 learners from 1 024 schools,” said Sopotela.
DA MPL Christopher Fry questioned the division of funds to the three service providers, how much each received and how the service providers were monitored.
ANC MPL Khalid Sayed wanted to know how many years the three service providers had been contracted by the WCED and whether a new tender would be advertised.
“The contracts were awarded in 2016 and were expected to end in 2018.
However, there were changes in the menu and challenges to award the contract. It was then further extended and again in 2020 there were challenges that developed, now it will end September 30,” said Sopotela.
Education MEC David Maynier said: “Our priority is our learners’ well-being and nutrition. We can assure the public that at no point was there a risk of learners going without meals, as we took action by extending the existing contracts to prevent any interruption in school feeding.
“The bid for the new contract was advertised last year, and is currently in the final stages of the bid evaluation process.”
Cape Times