By Alicia Mmashakana
Basic Education Minister, Siviwe Gwarube has reportedly suspended a R10 billion tender for a single supplier to feed millions of pupils across South African schools through the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP).
A Sunday newspaper reported that the tender was issued before Gwarube was appointed by the GNU in June. A whistleblower reportedly brought the matter to her attention, raising concerns about potential corruption.
This prompted the Minister to halt the tender and seek legal advice.
The NSNP was established by the ANC government to ensure that pupils from disadvantaged communities receive at least one nutritious meal a day. The scheme serves at least 9 million pupils nationwide and each province appoints its own suppliers.
During her budget vote earlier this month, Gwarube said the school nutrition programme had been allocated R9.798 billion for the financial year 2024/25, a 5.6% increase from the previous year.
However, feeding programs in schools have frequently been hampered by distribution and financing issues, she said.
“I have raised some concerns about this, particularly focusing on the integrity of the procurement process for such a large expenditure and the capacity of any single service provider to reach more than 9 million learners across the country every day.
“Additionally, I need to guarantee access to school nutrition to millions of learners; high centralisation of this kind does introduce a high risk of this not being realised,” Gwarube said.
The DA said it welcomes Gwarube’s decision to stop the issuing of a R9.8 billion tender which would have centralised procurement for the NSNP under a single provider.
This week, however, KZN Education MEC Sipho Hlomuka said the current budget for feeding schemes in schools was not enough.
“As a team, we have already agreed that the provincial ministers of Health, Education and Social Development will work together to identify where there are gaps in our extensive feeding schemes and how we ensure that we fight hunger with healthy, affordable meals,” Hlomuka said.
Last year both the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal left thousands of learners without meals for months after service providers failed to deliver meals to schools.
The DA National Spokesperson, Karabo Khakhau US while it is clear that various provinces have been struggling to manage their NSNP programmes and provide learners with nutritious meals, centralisation is hardly the answer.
“Instead, the struggling provinces should learn from those provinces that successfully manage to provide nutritious meals,” Khakhau said.
Principal investigator of the National Food and Nutrition Survey at the Human Sciences Research Council, Thokozani Simelane cautioned that when there are delays from the government or service providers, alternative sources of food must be provided through short term contracts.
“Children should not be made to suffer due to poor planning.”
INSIDE EDUCATION
Source: https://insideeducation.co.za/gwarule-halts-r10-billion-tender-to-centralise-school-feeding-schemes/
.
