Philang Special School children enjoy their meals in Kwa-Thema in Johannesburg on 23 September 2016. Picture: Gallo Images / Alet Pretorius
Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube has defended her decision to suspend the R9.8 billion tender for the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) that would have appointed a single provider.
Speaking during a hybrid plenary session of the National Assembly on Wednesday, Gwarube addressed questions from Members of Parliament (MPs) regarding the pause.
The minister clarified that the halt of the contract for the school feeding scheme programme was necessary for investigations into corruption allegations.
She assured that this suspension has not affected schools nationwide.
“I want to assure members of this House that there has been no disruption in the National School Nutrition Programme.
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“I have seen people saying me halting this process is somehow going to affect the school nutrition programme, it is not true.
“Currently, how the system works is that some provincials have a centralised system of procurement of their nutrition and some provinces have a decentralised system.
“The Department of Basic Education [DBE] about two years ago undertook a process of looking to see how they can modernise National School Nutrition Programme,” Gwarube said.
Gwarube explained that upon taking office in July, she requested a modernisation strategy to conduct due diligence.
This was necessary for two reasons given the NSNP tender has a substantial price tag of nearly R10 billion and is a multi-year contract.
“I needed to satisfy myself that in fact this strategy is one that will make sure that no child goes hungry in school.
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“The second thing is that I needed to make sure I do my due diligence in terms of making sure have we met Treasury regulations, which speaks to how direct grants to provinces are handled and process is ongoing.
“So, that is the process I have set. I have instructed the department to stop all steps taken thus far on this matter until I have satisfied myself that, one, it is the correct strategy to follow; two, no public money will be lost; and three, no child in any school will go hungry,” the minister continued.
She stated that she would “brief the Cabinet accordingly” once the due diligence was completed.
Gwarube told Parliament that she had engaged with various provinces about their departments’ alleged failure to consistently provide nutritious meals to schools.
“There is no perfect system whether you are looking at a centralised model or decentralised model.
“There is never going to be a system that is not corrupted. There will never be a system that will not have inefficiencies in them.
“What we need to do as government is make sure we close the loophole of corruption and that we close the inefficiencies as much as possible,” she said.
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The minister added: “So yes, I have engagements with provinces and some provinces have said look we are struggling with delivering nutritious meals every single day.
“For instance the Northern Cape, they struggle because of a unique set of circumstances where they have got long distances to travel.
So [our work], as the DBE, is to look at the provincial challenges and assist provinces to get the 9.7 million learners every single day.”
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