Durban - An internal memorandum from the KwaZulu-Natal Education Department shows that the school nutrition programme continues to experience challenges in providing meals to pupils, weeks after the problems first emerged.
A memorandum signed on Friday by the head of department, Nkosinathi Ngcobo, titled, “Delivery of food items for the month of June” details the problems that continue to persist with the programme.
Among the challenges is that some suppliers cannot supply food a month in advance as stipulated by the department, because of cash-flow problems.
The Mercury reported in April that the programme was teetering on the brink of disaster after food was not delivered to schools, leaving millions of pupils who are dependent on it hungry.
The crisis emerged after the department changed the tender specifications to manage the programme. In the past, the department had a decentralised system. It appointed multiple suppliers to provide food to the different schools. This was changed and the department appointed a single supplier to manage the R2 billion project.
When the pupils returned to school after the Easter break, there was no food. The single supplier battled to deliver. This prompted the department to revert back to the multiple suppliers format.
The change was hurried and it has now emerged some of these suppliers still do not have the financial support to deliver supplies efficiently.
The memo said: “It has come to the attention of the department that some schools are threatening to cook only when they have food items for the month of June, even when there is surplus stock for the month of May.
“While the schools are within the approved policy in their request for a full complement of June food items, the current situation is such that some service providers are still in the process of securing funding from funding institutions,” said the memo.
It goes on to explain the challenge in delivering the food and directs the schools to accept the food, even if it is not for the full month while service providers arrange funding from financial institutions.
It said part of the delays were because the service-level agreement had not been signed timeously and service providers needed those in place before they could apply for funding.
The IFP’s education spokesperson, Thembeni kaMdlopha-Mthethwa, said they were aware of reports that some schools had not been receiving food.
“In those schools, its the school governing body members speaking out, but the department has denied that (the schools are not receiving food).”
The DA’s education spokesperson Dr Imran Keeka said the nutrition programme continued to be besieged with problems.
“I have visited schools where gas was not received to cook food and so fires were made to cook. The MEC, Mbali Frazer, her party and the head of department did not properly plan, evaluate or implement this programme,” said the DA MPL.
Education Department spokesperson Muzi Mahlambi said there were no schools or pupils that were not getting food.
“The challenge is that some service providers are not able to deliver food for the month in advance, but they deliver each week.
“The circular (memo) issued by the department is meant to relax a clause that stipulates that suppliers must deliver a month of supplies, and it says to schools that the department is relaxing that clause, and they should accept what is being delivered,” he said.