Durban - Education stakeholders have urged the Department of Education to accept the recommendations made by the bid appeals tribunal against its defective national school nutrition programme tender process.
The tribunal investigated the programme's three-year tender process finalised in July and found the awarding of new tenders worth R1.4 billion was corrupt and irregular.
The programme was disrupted for weeks after the department failed to pay service providers on time which led to pupils at affected schools having to write exams on empty stomachs.
The tribunal found that the awarding of tenders to provide meals to more than 3000 quintile 1, 2, and 3 schools in the province was done without having followed the procedure as per the Public Financial Management Act. It recommended that the tender process be set aside.
Should the department adopt the recommendations, the appointment of service providers would be declared null and void and a new tender process would have to take place.
Department spokesperson Kwazi Mthethwa yesterday said the awarding of tenders had been done by the book.
“We have noted the judgment and would make sure we do everything to ensure that pupils at all qualifying schools are fed,” he said
The current service providers were ordered to continue the service while the new service providers were interdicted from working.
In July, a group of business people secured an interim order against the department in the Pietermaritzburg High Court. They alleged the tenders were awarded to companies owned by principals of schools, their spouses, members of school governing bodies, politicians and teachers.
A service provider in the Pietermaritzburg area said he hoped the new tender process would be transparent and fair.
Teachers' unions and the KZN Parents' Association welcomed the judgment saying it was about time that corruption stopped.
Mechanisms
Vee Gani, chairperson of the KZN Parents' Association, said the department now had to put mechanisms in place to ensure children were not forced to learn on empty stomachs again.
Thirona Moodley of the National Professional Teachers' Organisation of SA, said corruption in the system had been going on for years. She said it was negligent to let such an important programme go on without oversight and monitoring.
“If the department is serious about sorting out its problems and being able to feed our children, then it should re-start its tender process and make sure that they award tenders to the right people,” she said.
Allen Thompson, deputy president of the National Teachers' Union, said the union welcomed the judgment.
DA education spokesperson Rishigen Viranna said the party was vindicated in having referred the matter to the public protector for investigation into corruption claims.