Vulnerable children around the country still going hungry

It’s been more than three weeks since the North Gauteng High Court ordered immediate resumption of the National School Nutrition programme (NSNP) and vulnerable children around the country are still going hungry.

Equal Education (EE) said this week it was still receiving reports of food not being provided.

EE took the departments to court alongside two Limpopo schools.

“School communities have alerted us that no food is being provided in Jozini in Northern KwaZulu-Natal – an area that was highlighted in our court case due to the serious desperation of learners and parents,” it said in a statement.

It also described the contents of some food parcels as “shameful,”

“School communities are telling us that the quality of some of the food parcels being provided is shocking. They do not contain all the necessary food groups and cannot then be considered nutritious”.

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga in March announced the closure of the country’s schools and with it, the suspension of the NSNP – which ordinarily feeds more than 9 million of the country’s most vulnerable children on an almost daily basis.

In May the minister announced the phased re-opening of schools but said the NSNP would resume for all qualifying pupils.

She later backtracked, however, saying initially only those pupils who were attending school would have access to the NSNP. This prompted Equal Education, together with two Limpopo high schools, to turn to the courts.

Judge Sulet Potterill was scathing in her ruling, handed down in mid-July.

“Children are categorically vulnerable, poor hungry children are exceptionally vulnerable. The degree of the violation of the constitutional rights is thus egregious,” she said.

She ordered the minister “without delay to ensure that the NSNP is implemented in such a manner that it provides a daily meal to all qualifying learners … whether they are attending school or studying away from school as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic”.

She also issued a supervisory interdict directing the minister and her MECs throughout the country to file detailed plans for the resumption of the NSNP by last Friday.

But in a letter from EE, EE Law Centre, and SECTION27 , the organisations said the minister’s plan was “not detailed enough to guide the roll out of the NSNP at this time when learners depend on it more than ever”.

“We are worried that the plan filed by Minister Motshekga is not a clear and logical plan that can be immediately implemented,”it said, “The plan already makes excuses that there won’t be enough money to continue to roll out the NSNP in November and December, but does not mention how her department will solve this”.

In her plan, the minister said she had revised the policy around the conditional grant from which the NSNP is bankrolled so money which would have been spent on in-school meals could be diverted – to fund food parcels, for example – in times of disaster.

She also said she had put in place “a process for the review” to allow for the savings accrued in April and May, when the NSNP was not in operation at all, to be used.

“The business planning process to date has determined that there are possibilities of budget inadequacy on the provision of food parcels during the latter months of the year,” she said, “It is anticipated that with further closure of schools as announced by the President on 23 July 2020, there will be an increase in the number of leamers that will need food parcels”.

Equal Education wrote to the minister earlier this week, giving her until yesterday  to “fix her plan”.

It is understood that late yesterday afternoon, however, this was extended until next week.

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