Food in our schools: What are the facts?

The rigmarole to which Tanzanians are being treated in the saga about closure of several public boarding schools because of food shortage is surprising indeed.

 

As reported in our paper yesterday, more of the schools have been closed because their food suppliers have not been paid their dues for a long time. 

 

However, the government denied this fact, insisting that no school had sent students back home as a result of the problem.

 

Nonetheless, the fact of the matter is that even on Monday at least five such schools in  Kagera Region had to send students home after food suppliers suspended services demanding payment of their outstanding bills.

 

Confirming the payments made by the government was none other than the Permanent Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office-Regional Administration and Local Government (Tamisemi), Jumanne Sagini, hiimself. 

 

He said from July last year to last month, March, the government had paid the food suppliers each month without fail. As a matter of fact, he emphasised, in March it paid food suppliers a total of 8.4 billion/-, he told reporters.

 

We think that this seesaw does no one any good and, in fact, it is like washing one’s dirty linen in public. For, it is a fact that students have been sent home by heads of their schools because there is no food.

 

How could they go to classes or sleep in their dormitories on empty stomachs? Given this scenario, we think it was right for school heads to send them home.

 

The only mistake may be that the heads did not consult their bosses at the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training headquarters before taking that action.

 

But the fact remains that food suppliers had not been paid their dues for the food they had supplied to the schools. We tend to believe this fact because the school heads are sane enough not to send the students home for no reason.

 

It is well known that the government is indebted by many individuals and companies. This is notwithstanding the fact that if one wants to do good business, then he/she should do it with the government.

 

The government has all it takes for doing good business. Think of how many educational institutions, roads, bridges, buildings and other structures that it owns…the list is endless.

 

All these need to be serviced, but the government cannot do this all alone. It has to find assistance from somewhere, and thus the need to provide tenders to individuals and firms.

 

But winning a tender for providing services to government institutions requires one to have sufficient capital. This is mainly because of the red-tape (and corruption) involved in the process.

 

Worse still, payments from the government take very long; in fact too long that an individual or firm with small capital may end up being bankrupt.

 

We think this is what has happened with suppliers of food to the boarding secondary schools who claim not to have been paid their dues. The government should come out in the open and tell us the truth surrounding this saga. SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN