The 10,450 students who benefit from the School Feeding Program (PAE), in Pitalito, have not received food for two months. Today at the Mercantile Stock Exchange in Bogotá the new operator of the program would be chosen. In the third week of October it would be reactivated and would extend until the first days of the 2024 school calendar.
Rafael Rodríguez C.
Two long months without school feeding are the 10,450 students from educational institutions in the rural and urban areas of the municipality of Pitalito.
The reason, the School Feeding Program (PAE) is suspended, after the contract of the operator who was in charge of supplying food and supplements to the students had ended.
“The contract ended in the first week of August, on August 4, because the resources we have were exhausted…” said Carlos Alberto Martín Salinas, Secretary of Education of Pitalito, in dialogue with THE NATION.
The official maintained that the Food to Learn Unit (UApA) from the city of Bogotá, provided resources for the execution of the PAE on two occasions, pointing out that the first were executed in the first half of the year and the second arrived late and will be with those in which the new contract is developed.
“This year, the UApA has announced two contributions to the School Feeding Program, the first being the one that was executed until approximately June. We assumed the budget additions to end June, because they had told us that they would turn us the resources and the resources did not arrive on time, the resources were delayed, they were only certified after the third week of August…”
The program benefits 10,450 children from 152 educational institutions in the rural and urban areas of Pitalito. “This school feeding project basically covers the entirety of our rural area in primary and early secondary school and in the urban area it only covers preschool and first year students,” said the Secretary of Education of Pitalito.
Among the plans to increase coverage and reach high school youth is the pilot program that the UAPA is carrying out. “We are included in a pilot plan that will grow each semester, each year, in coverage. We hope that this is the case, with resources and that there is compliance with the proposals that have been told to us so far,” the official explained.
Broker
He specified that with the certification of the new resources, the process for awarding the contract with which the PAE will be reactivated in the Laboyos Valley began.
The award process is in the hands of the Mercantile Stock Exchange, which today will be in charge of selecting the company that will execute the PAE program contract for the remainder of the 2023 school calendar. “This contract exceeds 4,000 million pesos and goes up to February 2024, which are those issued by the UAPA, they complied with the transfer at the wrong time, but the resources reached us,” said Martín Salinas.
The selection of the operator will be carried out through a business round in which several firms interested in obtaining the PAE contract will be presented. “The interested firms, which we understand are several, bid for the contract, make their offers and tomorrow (today) it is defined who won and they award it.”
The head of the education portfolio indicated that the contract would be legalized next Friday, October 6, and would begin to be executed in the third week of this month. “We calculate that since next week, on Monday, the week of school recess begins, as soon as the students return we will have school meals, because the period is more than enough for it to start.”
