FOOD PRICES SURGE: GOVT TO RATION FOOD IN SCHOOLS

MBABANE – Due to the insufficiency of the E49 million budget allocation for the schools feeding scheme, government has decided to ration and cut pupils’ meals.

This is according to the Ministry of Education and Training Principal Secretary (PS), Bhekithemba Gama, who was interviewed by this publication yesterday. Previously, there were a number of complaints by parents and teachers about the shortage of food in schools, which resulted in poor concentration levels by some pupils who rely on the food they get from school on a daily basis. As a result, some schools opted to serve pupils smaller portions of food. This publication yesterday reported that the most affected schools were in the Manzini Region. Unconfirmed reports were to the effect that about 28 schools were no longer able to serve pupils with food, since the beginning of this academic year.

According to the PS, the prices of food had increased quite significantly, while the budget allocated towards the school feeding scheme was only enough to cater for the previous food prices. He said that was why they took the decision to stop supplying some food items to schools as they had become too expensive.

Increase

“As we are all aware of the increase in prices of some food items, we as a ministry, have taken a decision to ration food in schools. This is because the budget we currently have only caters for the previous prices before inflation. Due to this, we have not been able to afford some of the food items such as cooking oil and peanut butter,” he said. Gama mentioned that the current budget, which went into the schools feeding programme, was E49 million per annum. The PS said this amount was now not enough, especially because schools in the country had also increased in number, which made it difficult for government to cater for them all due to the hike in food prices.

Gama mentioned that they hoped in the next financial year to get an improved budget which would cater for the current food prices. The PS stated that the ministry was still to decide on how to go about effecting the rationing in the schools as this also caught them unaware. He said they would have to revisit the prices of the food items and then see which items they would have to compromise on.

Rationing

“We still have not come up with a plan as to how we will go about rationing the food, but we will deal with it as we go through the academic year. This is because this was not planned since the increase in prices came as a surprise to us,” he said. He advised the public not to panic as the ministry had the situation under control. Gama mentioned that the ministry was also working with nutritionists to ensure that the impact of the food shortage was not felt as much among the pupils. He said they would also receive suggestions from the different schools through the regional education offices (REOs), to find out how the schools thought this would be best dealt with. He said this was because pupils were best known by their teachers and head teacher, which was why they needed their input in the matter.

Meanwhile, Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) President Mbongwa Dlamini stated that the rationing of the food by the ministry was a wrong move, as already, the food government was supplying to the schools was not enough. He said if the hike in food prices meant the rationing of food in schools, this then meant that even civil servants’ salaries needed to be reviewed  or they would not be able to go to work as they also could no longer afford food and  transportation  due to the hike in prices of various commodities.

“This also then means that we should tell government that we cannot go to work because our salaries have not been reviewed, while basic needs have now become expensive .This is just proof that government has failed emaSwati and the move of rationing the food is making this situation worse. There are children who only eat at school as they come from poor backgrounds. This move will not only compromise their concentration level, but will also bring about sicknesses such as malnutrition,” he said.

Stakeholders

Dlamini mentioned that government instead needed to engage the different stakeholders such as teachers, head teachers and parents to find out the best way to deal with these issues.
“Government needed to engage us to find out our opinions on this as clearly they have failed to look after emaSwati. We would have given them our opinions and also found solutions to this problem. This is because when the children fail due to the lack of concentration, government will place the blame on teachers and their lack of teaching. This will also lead to a high number of children who will suffer from malnutrition, as due to COVID-19, parents lost their jobs and those working can hardly afford many things because like government is saying, things are now expensive,” he said.

Dlamini expressed that emaSwati needed to come together to fight this as this would create a generation of angry people. He said as teachers, it pained them that pupils were more than just their responsibility, but people who they had grown to value. Dlamini said it was unfortunate that the teachers too could not be of much help as the money they were earning was not enough to cater for their needs and also help the pupils.

“This makes me really angry because the pupils will suffer due to this. It is unfortunate that some of the schools are now operating with the assistance of some teachers who make financial donations to the schools, and due to the hike in so many commodities, we as teachers are no longer able to help as we can hardly take care of ourselves,” he said.

Disaster

A nutritionist, who requested to remain anonymous, stated that this was a recipe for disaster. She said this was because a large number of children in the different schools were from poor backgrounds and relied mostly on the food served at the different schools. She said this also meant that a lot of them would suffer from mulnutrion as government would not be able to provide some of the most importantfood items.

“Already, these children are not having a balanced diet at the school. Rationing the food will cause more problems health wise as these children do not normally eat in their homes. This will also bring about children who will not attend classes due to hunger and being fatigued. I think this decision is just a recipe for disaster and will cause so many problems to the children,” she said.  

Review

She said the best advice she could offer the ministry would be to rather have partners on board who would fund them until the next financial year where they would then review the situation. She mentioned that on the other hand, schools needed to reintroduce the growing of vegetables to avoid running out of food items they could have been able to grow. “I think the schools should reintroduce gardening as this will benefit the pupils. They would be able to eat what they get to grow in the garden, with or without the help from government, on some food items. Government needs to find partners who will assist through funding while they wait for the next financial year, as this is just not right and would instead cause a more angry society. Children who eat poorly are more likely to develop certain long-term health problems and complications, including Osteoporosis later in life and cardiovascular diseases,” she said.

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