Durban - Pacina Retail, the company at the centre of the National School Nutrition Programme controversy in KwaZulu-Natal, says it will continue to deliver food to schools in the province.
The declaration made yesterday comes as the KZN Department of Education and the KZN ANC indicated that the R2 billion contract with the retailer, to supply food to more than 5 000 schools had been terminated as the company failed to honour its contractual obligations.
Spokesperson for the service provider, Thobani Zikalala, told a media briefing at a warehouse in Durban yesterday that they had encountered challenges with the delivery of food, but refuted suggestions that they had failed to honour the contractual agreement.
He also dismissed rumours that the business owner, Manzini Zungu, had won the contract because of political connections in the ANC.
“We did not arrive in this space yesterday, we manage big brand retail stores and liquor stores, not tuck shops,” Zikalala said.
He said some of the challenges encountered during the distribution were caused by the presence of certain people at delivery points which disturbed operations and made staff uneasy.
Despite these challenges, Zikalala said, they were delivering as per their contract, even though they had not received a cent from the department.
Earlier this week in its meeting with the Education Portfolio Committee, the department indicated that Pacina Retail had withdrawn from the tender and had not gone to court to reclaim the contract. The department also said it had appointed a senior legal counsel to handle any claims by the company regarding the contract.
Asked what they knew about the termination of the contract with the Education Department, Zikalala said they were focusing on delivering food to the beneficiaries.
Meanwhile, the Education Portfolio Committee from the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature conducted surprise visits to a number of schools on the KZN South Coast and some members expressed
reservations about what they regarded as a small supply of food items.
DA committee leader Dr Imran Keeka said he was concerned about both the food quantities they had seen at schools and its nutritional value.
“The schools we visited had a population of about 1 600 learners and judging by the number of bags of food that was stored there and the fact that there was still a day of learning to go, my fear is that they would get small portions if all of them were to be catered for on what I saw,” said Keeka.
Committee chairperson Sifiso Sonjica said they had opted to visit schools without the department’s knowledge in order to get an on-the-spot account of the challenges.
“We have visited schools and noted that kids had their porridge and were going about their learning which was encouraging. However, there are some issues we have regarding things like storage facilities, the food quantities, and we hope to have a better picture after we have visited different parts of the province,” Sonjica said.
Today the committee members will visit schools in northern KZN.