The three ministries involved in supplying school meals are playing pass the parcel when it comes to accepting blame for the recent outbreak of food poisoning among pupils, reports Reem Leila Abu Qurqas central hospital in Minya governorate in Upper Egypt treated 112 primary school students last week for severe food poisoning. Transferred to the hospital in five ambulances over a period of two hours, eight of the 112 school children were detained owing to the seriousness of their condition. Every day, at noon, 100,000 snacks subsidised by the government are distributed among 14,000 pupils attending government schools in Minya. The meal consists of biscuits stuffed with pressed dates. "Primary students are usually the ones that are most hungry by the time the food is distributed and they start munching on the cookies immediately," says Mohamed Ashraf, an administrator at Safay school in Minya, where 100 children fell ill after eating food distributed under the school feeding project conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, in coordination with the Ministry of Education. Ahmed Bahaaeddin, deputy to the Ministry of Education in Minya governorate, says that schools reporting food poisoning among pupils had contracted meals from suppliers that had not been approved by the Ministry of Supply. The Ministry of Supply and Internal Trade provides licences to companies to manufacture and distribute school meals. "Each school is provided with a list of approved companies though the schools are not bound to use them," he said. Approved suppliers are, in theory, regularly monitored by the Ministry of Health and Population, which checks on the quality of food produced. Factory conditions are examined and the components of meals analysed on a regular basis. Reports are then delivered to the Ministry of Supply which in turn recommends suppliers to the Ministry of Education. The system, already involving three separate ministries, is further complicated by the fact that each school district is responsible for making its own contracts. Companies make bids, and in theory education officials are supposed to accept the lowest provided by a company approved by the Ministry of Supply. But many schools accept tenders from other companies. "When a school insists on dealing with a non-approved supplier there is nothing the ministry can do about it. It is the school's responsibility, and many prefer to take the money allocated for school meals and spend part of it on other things. Sometimes the quality of food supplied is poor," says Bahaaeddin. Last week's outbreak of food poisoning was not the first. In November 2006 hundreds of students suffered food poisoning after eating school meals. Two years earlier, more than 300 students were admitted to hospital after contracting severe poisoning that resulted in continuous vomiting. When, in 1998, 2,000 pupils in seven governorates became ill after eating school meals there were calls for an end to the service, with many parents arguing the money would be better spent on subsiding school uniforms or reducing charges for extra curricular activities. Following each of the outbreaks none of the ministries involved accepted responsibility, instead passing the blame between one another. School meals were introduced by international development agencies operating in Egypt. They stopped their work when the 1967 war broke out, and the programme was only resumed in 1996, under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. Fawzi Basali, head of Abu Qurqas hospital in Minya governorate, insists food approved by the ministry is perfectly safe. If the food distributed among students is not approved by the Health Ministry, he says, neither the ministry nor its officials can be held responsible. "Sometimes, even after the ministry has approved samples, they are then replaced by cheaper items, often past their expiry date," says Basali. The Ministry of Education spends more than LE350 million every year on subsidising daily meals for 10 million of them, money which, says Bahaaeddin, the ministry is unwilling to allow to go to waste. Minister of Education Yusri El-Gamal has told the press at this time every year stories of food poisoning emerge to coincide with the ministry's schedule for the renewal of supply contracts. Many of the stories, he says, are exaggerated in an attempt to force the ministry to terminate existing contracts and sign new ones.
