Replacement Green-Lit In Peanut Butter Saga
Chakalisa Dube | Tuesday September 21, 2021 06:00
Although the council said the first batch of the new peanut butter product will be delivered within a month and a half, this week, The Monitor sources said that the fake peanut butter is yet to be replaced.
Insiders at the council questioned the authority’s commitment to ensure that the fake peanut butter is replaced.
Yesterday, the city clerk Lopang Pule told The Monitor that the council has not given up on efforts to ensure that the fake peanut butter is replaced.
“Yes, we acknowledge that the recalled peanut butter is yet to be replaced in schools. Like we have maintained we are working around the clock to rectify this situation and resume the supply of peanut butter to school children.” Pule explained the council was still testing samples of the new peanut butter that Magdinvel, the company procured, intends to supply the council with as a replacement for the fake peanut butter.
“At the moment, samples of a replacement peanut butter, which had been sent for further testing at our laboratories, have been approved and the supplier has been given the green light to supply council. We are currently awaiting the replacement consignment and we assure our clients that we will not rest until the provision of peanut butter in schools is restored,” he said in his written response to The Monitor enquiry.
The council warned that it will take action if the company does not deliver the right product as promised.
This follows after an earlier investigative report this year by The Monitor sister publication, Mmegi, which unearthed that the council reportedly spent over P312,000 on a supply of fake peanut butter that was delivered by a local company called Magdinvel.
About 1,835 units (5kg per unit) of peanut butter were supplied to 20 schools by the FCC. One thousand seven hundred units were successfully recalled while 135 had already been used in various schools after the Mmegi exposé. There were allegations that some council senior officials had links with the company, but Mmegi could not independently verify such allegations.
At the time Mmegi raised the alarm on the supply of the fake peanut butter, which council insiders said the company's directors, Margret Masita and Dineo Digapeng, had made a formal effort to supply the ‘Goody Thokoman’ peanut butter range, a South African product.
Magdinvel first came under fire after it was found that the company that promised to supply the council with the Goody Thokoman peanut butter, ended up supplying a different brand with fake Goody Thokoman labelling.
The first week of June, the council said that the company had made an undertaking to deliver the right product at its own cost and redeem itself.