Thousands of Eastern Cape children are going hungry after the province’s new school feeding system collapsed before it got off the ground, Dispatch Online reported on Thursday.
The pupils were supposed to have been getting three cooked meals a week and soup and bread on the other two days from May 15.
Problems apparently arose after the previous suppliers for the feeding scheme, including two major bakery groups, were dumped. They made way for smaller community-based suppliers and co-operatives, that had been unable to deliver.
Termination of a 10-year-long relationship with Mr Bread and Star Bakery also meant that hundreds of sub-contractors, who had delivered bread in the school districts, were left without a means of earning income.
A local bakery group asked by a school to supply bread has been threatened with a high court interdict by a Johannesburg food supplier if it delivers the bread. Teachers said when the new suppliers failed to deliver on the initial menu, they reverted back to five days of soup and bread, but not even this plan was working.
A teacher at the Nonesi Junior Secondary School at Libode told the Daily Dispatch that the school only received bread for the first time this week.
”And yesterday we got no bread. We are not being fed properly.”
Principal Lucy Ngcingama of the Mdatya school in Bizana said the bread her school received the previous week was rotten and a 5kg pack of soup looked like fertiliser.
”We don’t know why the department does not intervene.”
On Monday, a meeting held in Mthatha between suppliers and the education department’s Mthombile Gaca was also attended by Peter Mbembe of the premier’s office. A follow-up meeting took place on Tuesday, and departmental officials were to meet suppliers in Port Elizabeth on Thursday.
”We definitely regard the situation as serious and we are meeting on Friday to prepare a comprehensive report on what happened over the last three weeks,” said the chief of staff in the premier’s office, Papama Mfenyana.
He said the report would be given to Premier Nosimo Balindlela and other members of the executive.
”We cannot allow this situation to continue.” – Sapa