Not again. Pupils in Limpopo are being deprived of their school meals because the education department is squabbling with providers over payments.

Not again. Pupils in Limpopo are being deprived of their school meals because the education department is squabbling with providers over payments.

Emerging black companies are withholding their services because they say costs have skyrocketed beyond what they are paid.

The education department is playing hard ball and says these inexperienced businessmen should have thought about that when they signed their contracts.

Meanwhile the kids suffer. Absenteeism has shot up. And those who attend class can't concentrate.

But that is no concern of the bungling bureaucrats and aspirant tycoons driven by dreams of cash profits.

Shame on them.

In a country where the sparse fare pupils receive at school might be the only real meal many get each day, venal considerations must be written out of the equation.

But they are not. In province after province the same tale unfolds with painful regularity year after year. Either the bureaucrats don't pay their bills on time or the providers fail to comply with their contracts.

In either instance thousands of kids go hungry.

When will our officials realise that a balanced meal is as important as pencils, paper and schoolbooks in our malnourished land? Surely this is not rocket science.