Angie Motshekga and MECs in breach of constitutional duty
Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga and the MECs of the various provinces have been held to be in breach of their constitutional duty in halting the feeding scheme under the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) during the Covid-19 lockdown, then reintroducing it in a very haphazard fashion, putting millions of school children at risk of starvation.
Read: South African children face hunger as school closure halts free meals
The Pretoria High Court on July 17 ordered that the NSNP be implemented without delay, and that it provide a “daily meal to all qualifying learners whether they are attending school or studying away from school as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic”.
The education minister and the various provincial MECs put up what the judge referred to as a “semantic defence”, which was “rejected as being in bad in law and contrived”.
The NSNP was initiated in 1994 by the first post-apartheid democratic government with the objective of alleviating hunger, thereby improving the quality of education by enhancing learning capacity, school attendance, punctuality and general health.
The court recognised that providing the poorest of the poor child with at least one nutritious meal a day was a lifesaver.
Read more article on Moneyweb News