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Patrick Chitumba, Midlands Bureau Chief
THE schools supplementary feeding scheme is unlikely to be expanded to benefit pupils from Grade Three to Grade Seven given limited resources, a senior government official has said.
Midlands provincial administrator, Mrs Cecelia Chitiyo- Moyo, said the ongoing schools feeding scheme targets those in Grade Two and below but there has been a call to expand it.
“The schools feeding programme is ongoing but we have had complaints from schools that pupils in Grade Three to Grade Seven have been complaining about not being considered.
Since they watch while the little ones eat, they have complained at their respective schools.
Unfortunately, using the current budgets we can only feed the Grade Two’s and below,” said Mrs Chitiyo- Moyo in an interview yesterday. She said Government was grateful to the Seventh Day Adventist church which had taken over the feeding of pupils in schools in Zvishavane.
As a result of the church’s intervention, she said, the food that was meant to feed pupils in Zvishavane was being taken to feed pupils in other areas.
She said the province was expecting the number of the vulnerable families to receive food aid in the province to shoot up to 100 000 from the current 88 259 as grain from last season runs out.
“Currently we are feeding 88 259 families and that number is expected to surge after we complete another survey. Every month we distribute 4 414 tonnes of maize in the province,” she said.
Mrs Chitiyo –Moyo said the food distribution programme had been made easier by the Zimbabwe National Army which was using its trucks to ferry the food aid from GMB depots to 255 wards in the province.
@pchitumba1.
Online Reporter