Children from vulnerable families are amongst the hardest hit by the collapsed school nutrition program in KwaZulu-Natal. Learners from over 5 000 schools in the province have been affected. The Basic Education Department says it will terminate the KwaZulu-Natal school nutrition program tender, should any irregularity in the awarding of the tender be established. Recently, the department appointed a single service provider to handle the over R2 billion school nutrition program.
Seventeen-year-old Sizwe Zulu is a Grade 11 from one of the schools in the King Cetshwayo District on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast. He lives with his eleven family members in a crumbling mud house. They rely on the social grant of his three younger siblings.
The children relied on the school nutrition program to get a meal. Some schools in the area reported that they couldn’t provide meals because they did not receive enough food. Others resorted to giving learners apples.
“It becomes hard for us to concentrate when we’re hungry. Since the beginning of the second term, we have not been getting food to eat. And when we get home sometimes there’s no food for us to eat unless mom had just been paid grant,” says Zulu.
The children’s mother says she relied mostly on the nutrition program.
“No one works in this house. We have to wait for the child grant. They go to schools every morning without breakfast and eat lunch at school. But now they don’t eat. And when they come home there’s nothing to eat and they have to wait until supper if there is food that day,” says Nomusa Zulu, his mother.
NGOs and community members have extended a helping hand to schools in their respective areas but it’s not enough.
Teachers’ union SADTU says it’s disturbed by the fact that it sees neither action nor any immediate commitment from the Provincial Education Department to address this.
The Special Investigating Unit confirmed in a statement, that it has received complaints pertaining to an irregular tender award made to Pacina Retail Pty Ltd.
SIU to probe the tender:
