P SCHOOL FEEDING SCHEME ON THE EDGE AGAIN
The Gauteng Education Department’s feeding scheme, which forms part of the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP), is again under the spotlight after alleged collusion and corruption by some bidders and officials.
The bidders are through their lawyer approaching the courts in order to urgently obtain the new “allocation and award” documentation to form part of the review bundle to be submitted by Monday, on the 7th of April.
It has been revealed in the legal documents that while the 49 appointed service providers are expected by law to share the cake to feed 1, 7 million learners in Gauteng, some are being wrongfully allocated bigger slices and others just crumbs.
The lawyer for several of the successful bidders, in a letter to the GED, highlighted that the “allocation of both schools and learners allocated to the was done in a manner that was neither transparent nor fair and amounts to a arbitrary and capricious allocation in circumstances where the bidders had a legitimate expectation as to fair procedural administrative action”.
“The bidders assert that of the 1,7million learners who form part of the NSNP scheme each of the 49 successful bidders ought to have been awarded of the order of 34 700 learners.”
Another issue is the allocation of the various schools which are spread all over the province with the distance between some schools being more than two hours.
“We have all been expected to present and invest heavily in infrastructure such as warehouses, trucks and specialised personnel, hence it is not fair to give one supplier 13 000 learners while another is allocated 80 000.
“With all the ever-increasing fuel and other general costs such as vehicle maintenance and salary increases, there is no way that some of the service providers will survive even the first three months of their contract”, said one of the aggrieved parties.
The NSNP is a crucial poverty alleviation mechanism and its suspension or failure to deliver can exacerbate food insecurity and malnutrition among learners.
The program is aimed at ensuring that school-going children from disadvantaged backgrounds have at least one nutritious meal while they are being taught.
The GDE halted the process last year after admitting that the proper procurement process had not been followed in awarding the multi-billion tender.
