The Ministry of Education is to launch an investigation into rotting maize meal for its school feeding programme found at a school. 500 bags of maize meal had been stored at a secondary school and not delivered to the intended beneficiaries. The company Meal Management Services holds the contract for the supply and delivery of food to primary schools in six regions.

A petition has been sent to the Indian authorities pointing out that more than 5 lakh of primary school students in West Delhi have had no school lunch for two months; it denounces an inappropriate use of public resources.

Feeding schemes in our primary schools were implemented from 1994 as part of the Reconstruction and Development Programme. The main aim of the feeding schemes was to ensure that the basic nutritional needs of millions of malnourished South African children living in poverty were met. Meanwhile school feeding schemes that offer many of these children the only meal of their day are being threatened by bureaucratic inefficiencies and corrupt practises on the part of independent suppliers.