NSNP crisis: 540 KZN schools still without food

4 May 2023

The DA has received information that 540 schools in KwaZulu-Natal are still not providing meals to some 30 000 learners as part of the National Schools Nutrition Programme (NSNP).

The DA will request the South African Human Rights Commission (HRC) to investigate the crisis caused by the KZN Department of Basic Education’s (DBE) decision to centralise the NSNP in the province – a tender that is now being investigated by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU).

It is worrying that both the National and Provincial Departments failed to mention that these 540 schools are still without food, despite their widespread oversights earlier this week in the province.

How can the Departments hope to solve the crisis if they are dishonest, or worse unaware, of how widespread the problems are.

While the Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, and KZN Education MEC, KZN Education MEC, Mbali Frazer, are patting themselves on the back, some of the province’s poorest and most vulnerable learners continue to starve. This while malnutrition and stunting continues to remain a problem in South Africa, affecting learners’ future academic and economic success.

This incompetence from the ANC government must not go unchecked. It is clear that cadre enrichment weighs far more than the well-being of children. Apologies when government inevitably fails the country’s poorest and most vulnerable members of society is no longer enough or acceptable. Heads must roll – that is the only just course of action.

Issued by Bax Nodada, DA Shadow Minister of Basic Education, 4 May 2023