Khadija Magardie
The Eastern Cape MEC for health this week admitted his department kept a lid on information that peanut butter being fed to indigent children on its school feeding scheme was toxic.
Bevan Goqwana said this was because the department lacked evidence that certain suppliers were passing on contaminated peanut butter, and because they “were not going to scare people”.
The startling admission was made in a heated debate in the Eastern Cape legislature this week.
The debate was called after the Mail & Guardian reported last week that the province’s health authorities were sitting on information that batches of peanut butter supplied for sandwiches for the Primary Schools Nutrition Programme (PSNP) in at least three regions of the province were contaminated with aflatoxin.
Aflatoxin is a dangerous by-product of a fungus that can grow between the shell and the fruit when peanuts are not stored properly after harvesting. It is carcinogenic in any quantity. Tests on peanut butter supplied to the PSNP in certain regions of the Eastern Cape revealed the levels were more than 30 times the legally acceptable limit. Despite this, the department took nearly four months before finally taking peanut butter off the scheme.
Goqwana was asked to answer to the charge that the department knowingly concealed the information and explain what control measures were in place to prevent a repeat episode.
During the debate, Goqwana admitted the toxin could cause irreparable liver damage in the long run, but said it was generally harmless. “If a lot of aflatoxin has been taken, one will feel nauseous and one will vomit and feel unhappy,” he said.
He said the department did not immediately halt the feeding of the contaminated peanut butter because they needed to do “thorough investigations” before sudden stoppage, which could have resulted in legal action by the suppliers.
Meanwhile, a major manufacturer of peanut butter in the province alleges that he met the deputy director of nutrition in Bisho, Nobahle Ndabula, as early as May last year where he warned her that the procurement policy in the province for the PSNP could lead to major problems, including an aflatoxin outbreak.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, he also claims that dirty dealing by big companies within the multimillion-rand industry is rife, aimed at forcing small-scale manufacturers out of the market. None of the peanut butter affected, however, has been sourced from the commercial sector and is mainly from the small manufacturers.
Nonetheless, similar theories were put forward by health authorities during the debate. On several occasions it was suggested that the department would be probing a “hidden agenda” behind the scandal, orchestrated by big companies outside the province, to “damage the reputation” of the province.
But it is the absence of checks and balances in the process that is the source of the problem.
Most manufacturers, especially those who cannot afford to buy up export-quality peanuts, want to obtain supplies as cheaply as possible opening the door to unscrupulous practices by peanut growers.
This situation is unlikely to be helped by admissions by Ndabula that the supply of peanut butter has been “complicated” by budgetary constraints. A source in the field of nutrition says the low price the department is prepared to pay encourages small-scale suppliers to take short cuts.
According to a manufacturer in the Griqualand-West region, one peanut grower in the area has been deliberately trying to hawk condemned peanuts to small businesses.
The chain of authority in the PSNP contract is muddled and unclear on where the buck stops. The NGOs awarded the tender to supply foodstuffs to the scheme contracted both a supplier and women’s empowerment cooperatives in the region to administer the feeding.
According to one manufacturer, the NGOs often want the cheapest quote and “express little interest in issues like aflatoxin contamination”. In any event, the manufacturer is not obliged to inform the cooperatives where they get their peanuts from, nor to supply an aflatoxin certificate.
The department claims it regularly insists that all suppliers to the scheme provide quality-control certificates from the businesses and NGOs that supply the food. But this was demanded only after the first tests on peanut butter last year indicated a problem. One manufacturer told the M&G that prior to the recent scare he had never been asked for such a certificate from either the NGO or the health authorities.
Subsequently, the NGOs were asked for a list of their suppliers the province’s health authorities did not know who they were. As a result, it is hard to detect the flow of faulty foodstuffs into the scheme.
The children on the scheme are currently being fed fortified biscuits and an energy-rich cooldrink.
The chair of the Eastern Cape standing committee on health, Mahlubandile Qwase, acknowledged the need to look at mechanisms for focusing on the products received from manufacturers saying it needed to be proven “beyond reasonable doubt” that they adhered to the regulations.
He said the focus needed to extend to other foodstuffs on the scheme. He also took a swipe at the media for “taking things too far”, adding that newspapers are damaging the image of the province.