MP accuses government of wasting public money on “spoiled” school meals

CAIRO - 12 March 2017: A member of the Egyptian parliament has accused the government of wasting nearly one billion EGP on a school nutrition project that ended up poisoning hundreds of students due to “spoiled meals,”

Ahram Gate reported

Thursday.

In an urgent statement submitted to the parliament, Mohamed Farag Amer, head of the youth and sports committee, said such food poisoning has occurred frequently in recent years. He referred to “government failure” in resolving this crisis and demanded a full study of the situation to “prevent the reoccurrence of these catastrophes.”

The Egyptian government invests USD 110 million per year in the National School Feeding Program, aimed at 12.5 million pupils, according to

a report published by the UN’s World Food Program

(WFP) at the end of 2017.

Several incidents of food poisoning in schools have been reported in the past year in the governorates of Sharqia, the Red Sea, Asyut, Beni Sweif and others. While some were allegedly attributed to governmental school meals, others were suspected to be caused by other reasons.

In his statement, Amer suggested that school meals be replaced with a fixed sum of money to be offered to the students of poor families with limited income. He added that distributing school meals to all students is a waste of public money.