News24.com | We did not have a smooth start, says KZN education MEC on food nutrition debacle

KwaZulu-Natal Education MEC Mbali Frazer visited schools with functioning nutrition programmes on Monday.

• KwaZulu-Natal Education MEC Mbali Frazer has expressed disappointment in the shortcomings of the province's National School Nutrition Programme.
• The programme is the largest in South Africa and has faced several challenges with the main service provider, Pacina Retail, resulting in the department reverting to its original service providers.
• Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga emphasised the importance of central procurement to ensure an efficient and cost-effective implementation of the programme.

KwaZulu-Natal Education MEC Mbali Frazer on Tuesday expressed her disappointment in the shortcomings of the province's National School Nutrition Programme, saying the department's main supplier faces a multitude of challenges.

The programme, which provides meals to pupils in need, has faced many challenges allegedly due to the main service provider, Pacina Retail, not delivering the bulk of items to pick-up points.

"We did not have a smooth start when trying to implement the new model on the part of the main service provider for the National School Nutrition Programme which led to the bulk of items not being delivered to pick-up points," said Frazer.

She was addressing the Oversight Committee on Basic Education and stated the programme was the largest in South Africa and "everything possible has been done to restore" the programme to normality.

"Our focus was ensuring pupils were getting food. We tried to assist where we could in terms of resolving logistical glitches, but it later became apparent that Pacina was facing multitude challenges that went beyond logistical glitches."

Frazer and her team found some items delivered to schools were not up to the expected level.

READ | Company at the centre of KZN school nutrition programme debacle pulls out of contract

"To be honest, we are now at the stage where fortunately enough, the head of department has started dealing with the matter legally because we are not winning with the service provider," she said.

The education department has since gone back to the old system it was using.

"We don't want to go into discussing it [Pacina Retail] coming back, because that is [with the] legal [department]," Frazer said.

"We are convinced that today, all schools will get meals. As it is, we are being assisted by the Office of the Premier and executive members to our schools, ensuring progress to this effect."

Frazer expressed her embarrassment and hurt at the failure of the programme but gave her assurance the department would minimise the challenges faced by schools.

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga also addressed concerns regarding the failure of the programme, saying there have been historic problems with it, not only in KZN but also in other parts of the country.

Motshekga said:

"I said to officials that this model is like trying to feed a family through a spaza shop."

Motshekga said almost 60% of the money was lost by smaller service providers because they must buy from retailers such as Pick n Pay and Shoprite.

She added the ideal model was one where they agreed on prices and buy from a central procurement system, just like the department presently did with textbooks.

READ | KZN premier orders probe into school nutrition programme amid claims of inadequate food supply

Motshekga said the national education department agreed to move to this system with the programme in KZN so that the department and pupils on the ground "can benefit from economies of scale [bulk buying], especially with the increase in food prices due to inflation".

She assured the public they were working closely with the KZN education department to deal with the failure to comply with the contract.

Motshekga also mentioned they had been communicating with Frazer closely and were heading to the province to deal with some of the issues face-to-face.

She emphasised the importance of the central procurement to ensure the programme ran efficiently and benefitted pupils who relied on it.