KwaZulu-Natal government monitors school nutrition programme rollout

A warm meal is served on a cold morning at Stratford Primary school. Picture: Henk Kruger/African News Agency (ANA).

A warm meal is served on a cold morning at Stratford Primary school. Picture: Henk Kruger/African News Agency (ANA).

Published May 2, 2023

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KwaZulu-Natal Premiere Nomusa Dube-Ncube will on Tuesday lead the Members of the Executive Council (MECs) on oversight visits to monitor the rollout of the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP).

This comes after the school nutrition programme was thrust into the spotlight three weeks ago due to challenges of inadequate food supply in some of the schools in the province.

Pacina Retail (Pty) LTD, a company appointed as a service provider, failed to deliver food on the first day of school in the second term, leaving thousands of pupils to starve. The service provider has now terminated its contract to deliver food to the schools.

The visit will assess the state of readiness in the implementation of the feeding programme as thousands of learners return to school on Tuesday after an extended weekend.

The KZN provincial government said it has developed a tool to monitor and report on the progress. The tool will be used by the teams on the ground to collate and feed information to a central point in real time to ensure quick analysis of the situation and rapid interventions where necessary.

Dube-Ncube will visit schools under Pinetown District, while the Leader of Government Business and MEC for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs Siboniso Duma visits schools under Umgungundlovu District and MEC for Education Mbali Frazer will visit schools under uThukela District.

All MECs have been deployed to monitor schools where they are designated as district political champions.

kamogelo.moichela@inl.co.za

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