The Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) is concerned that the Eastern Cape’s vital School Nutrition Programme (SNP) is once again experiencing major problems.
The Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) is concerned that the Eastern Cape’s vital School Nutrition Programme (SNP) is once again experiencing major problems.
The SNP has been beset by problems in the past, and Premier Noxolo Kiviet promised in her state of the province address in June that her government would “focus our attention on a range of initiatives aimed at improving the overall management of this programme”.
One aspect critical to the smooth delivery of food to hungry learners is the payment of stipends of R500 a month to meal servers at schools participating in the SNP. The payment of these stipends has been a problem in the past, and clearly should have been addressed by the department.
Despite this, and despite an increase in the SNP budget from R436.6-million in the 2008/09 financial year to R486.7-million this year, a circular sent out on 5 October by the acting superintendent general of the Department of Education, Prof RH Nengwekhulu, states that the department has experienced problems in processing the payment of stipends and that “some meal servers” have not received payment for “a number of months”.
Although the circular notes that the department is working “tirelessly” to resolve the problem, it says that schools participating in the SNP should pay meal servers out of their own financial resources. Schools will be informed by the Department as to how they may be reimbursed “in due course”.
The PSAM is particularly concerned at this state of affairs since many schools lack the resources to pay meal servers, even as an interim measure. This is especially the case at those schools where learners are most in need of SNP meals.
The PSAM therefore urges the department to resolve the issue of the payment of stipends to meal servers as speedily as possible. More importantly, the department must guarantee that no learner will go hungry while the matter is being sorted out, and in particular it must guarantee that learners will continue to receive meals at schools which lack the financial resources to pay meal server stipends.
