Cape Town - The Basic Education Department has said it was monitoring closely the expenditure on the allocated R7.7bn for the school nutrition programmes.
Head of educational enrichment service Granville Whittle told MPs that the amount was still available as it had not been slashed during budget cuts for Covid-19 interventions.
"We are monitoring it quite closely because of the prices paid for PPE and sanitisers," Whittle said.
He made the statement when he was briefing the basic education portfolio committee on Tuesday.
Whittle said they did not anticipate any province would struggle to provide food to the pupils during the remainder of the financial year.
The programme is meant to feed 9.7 million pupils in Quintile 1-3 schools but an exception is made for some schools in Quintile 4 and 5.
Whittle said 4.4m pupils were being fed as at August 26 after schools re-opened.
"During the course we expect the programme to be fully implemented," he said.
Whittle also said they had improved monitoring of the programme and that Covid-19 regulations were followed.
Director-General Mathanzima Mweli said out of the nine instances the department was taken to court, it won eight except the challenge brought up over the school nutrition programme.
"We accepted the outcome of the court case and decided not to appeal. It would have been immoral and a waste of time to appeal," Mweli said.
Political Bureau