DURBAN - THE whistle-blowers on the food allegedly containing maggots and being served to pupils at Eziphembeleni High School as part of the National Schools Nutrition Programme were disappointed with the manner in which the investigation was conducted.
The investigation began two weeks ago after another report that pupils were served amasi with maggots in it. According to the Educators Union of South Africa (Eusa), investigators were biased and favoured the school principal instead of finding the cause of the problem.
Eusa went public with a recorded phone call where a teacher at the school complained to the union about the treatment she had received from department investigators. In the recording, the woman complained she was being victimised for standing up for the pupils being fed rotten food.
The Daily News is in possession of the recording where the teacher was speaking to Eusa president Scelo Bhengu, claiming she was not given an opportunity to bring her witnesses to be interviewed.
She said department officials were putting words in her mouth. She said the officials were challenging what she had seen with her own eyes, with an aim to reject what she saw.
The woman also claimed that the department officials were being offered takeaways whenever they were there to conduct investigations.
“Only pupils who have become witnesses from the principal were interviewed, while I was not allowed to bring my witnesses – the pupils who brought the food with maggots to me – to be interviewed,” she said.
When Eusa first exposed this in April, Education MEC Kwazi Mshengu immediately directed the department to investigate the matter.
Pupils who claimed that they had found maggots in their food told the Daily News that they had stopped eating the food provided by the school, while others said they had on two occasions alerted the principal.
Bhengu said that as whistle-blowers in the matter, they were disappointed with the manner in which the first and the second investigation were being handled. He said the department found itself forced to conduct another investigation.
“We have seen the problem of food at Ezphembeleni continuing because the department is failing to solve it and is protecting certain people. We do not know what the department is hoping to achieve because, at the end of the day, the lives of the poor children who rely on this food continue to be at stake. It is obviously not enough that some pupils had fallen sick through eating the food served at school,” said Bhengu.
He said they had decided to write to premier Sihle Zikalala to ask him to intervene in the matter.
Efforts to get a response by director of School Nutrition Thami Cele on the allegations were unsuccessful.
Education spokesperson Muzi Mahlambi was also not able to provide a comprehensive comment on the allegations.
Daily News