Ehlanzeni Region is as follows : R20, 745, 403.20

Gert Sibande Region : R18, 622, 980.48

National School Nutrition Programme Total Feeding-R63, 506, 301.12 The above amount include volunteer worker payment which is 4, 894, 560.00

Kindly note that, the budget will always be affected by the changes made by schools. The budget was calculated using the number of learners, feeding days and the price per learner.

These allocations are in accordance with the budget from National (refer to approved business plan) allocated for 2004-2005 Conditional Grant Mpumalanga Province.

Feeding for 2004-2005 started on the 19'h of April 2004. Targeting was done in January 2004 to identify the neediest pupils in the Province. Because of limited funds not all learners received food parcels. The Department of Education and Health were responsible for targeting in liaison with the School Governing Bodies and circuit offices,

Some of the criteria used to identify needy pupils included the following.

• Children who do not carry lunch boxes.
• Children who are staying far from their schools
• Disadvantaged rural school children outside the boundaries of the Local Authorities.
• Poverty Gap

The most important thing to consider was that regions should not exceed their budget; otherwise Department of Education will not be able to remain within the limited budget allocated to the Province. The regions should always inform the Provincial office incase there is a change in the enrolment of

the learners. Incase some of the schools are closed due to a low number of learners the head office must be informed to remove those schools on the

The Department of Education is feeding approximately 491 092 learners and 1,351 schools are involved in the Primary School Nutrition. Intervention. It should be noted that the number of children fluctuates because of the changes made by the districts and Department of Education

The Departmental Tender committee appointed forty-four new suppliers in July 2004. The provincial office for nutrition conducted information session on the 27'h of July 2004 at Parks Board centre to equip the new suppliers with all the information needed for the implementation of the programme. Computer Diskettes and operational manuals were distributed to all the suppliers

2,852 women from poverty stricken areas were identified by the governing bodies and schools involved in the PSNI. They are employed on a temporary basis as volunteers to help with the preparation of food. The volunteer workers receive R11.00 per day (depending on the number of feeding days per month) for their daily preparation of food.

At the beginning of the financial year provincial office experienced problems with regard to the submission of the "supplier master maintenance" form. Most suppliers were not registered for VAT and submitted their forms very late. This resulted in the late registration of some of the suppliers with the Finance section.

The provincial office always visit the regions and circuit clusters to give support and training since this is a new programme in the Department and a computer software system is used to process claims for the payment of the service providers. Six workshops have been conducted for suppliers and officials.

The Provincial Office supported the regions to explain the importance of these forms to suppliers. This form is used by the Department to register the supplier on the Mpumalanga Financial System BAS/ LOGIS. VAT Certificate must be attached to the form of the supplier if the supplier receives more man R300. 000.00 per annum. All our suppliers are above the latter amount.

All the forty-four suppliers contracted by the Department have been registered in the Logis System. Suppliers are delivering food to schools but they submit their claims late. Some of their delivery notes are not properly written. Some of the officials did not attend the information session conducted in each region to capacitate the officials on the implementation of the programme. Auditors nave been contracted by the department to verify the enrolment at schools.

A workshop was again conducted on the 30 of September 2004 at the provincial office to give support to the officials from each region.