Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has con­firmed that no stu­dents were af­fect­ed fol­low­ing an iso­lat­ed food-safe­ty breach in­volv­ing a batch of roti in­tend­ed for the na­tion­al School Nu­tri­tion Pro­gramme.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the min­istry said the Na­tion­al Schools Di­etary Ser­vices Lim­it­ed (NS­D­SL)—the com­pa­ny re­spon­si­ble for man­ag­ing the coun­try’s school-feed­ing op­er­a­tions—de­tect­ed the com­pro­mised batch dur­ing rou­tine pre-pro­duc­tion checks.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry, the roti, sup­plied by one of NS­D­SL’s ap­proved man­u­fac­tur­ers, was im­me­di­ate­ly quar­an­tined and re­moved from cir­cu­la­tion, pre­vent­ing it from en­ter­ing any school or reach­ing stu­dents.

“The min­istry con­firms that no stu­dents were af­fect­ed,” the re­lease stat­ed, not­ing that the dis­cov­ery was made be­fore any meal prepa­ra­tions be­gan.

Al­though the min­istry did not spec­i­fy the na­ture of the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the in­ci­dent is linked to the dis­cov­ery of dead lizards in a batch of roti dough ear­li­er this week—a mat­ter that sparked pub­lic con­cern and calls for a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

For­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly pub­licly urged au­thor­i­ties to re­view the sup­pli­er’s op­er­a­tions, de­scrib­ing the sit­u­a­tion as “ex­treme­ly wor­ry­ing” giv­en the scale of the School Nu­tri­tion Pro­gramme, which feeds tens of thou­sands of stu­dents dai­ly.

NS­D­SL has since launched an in­ter­nal au­dit and com­pre­hen­sive as­sess­ment of the sup­pli­er’s pro­duc­tion en­vi­ron­ment. The min­istry said the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues rou­tine mon­i­tor­ing and ver­i­fi­ca­tion ex­er­cis­es to en­sure all con­tract­ed cater­ers re­main com­pli­ant with food-safe­ty stan­dards.

“We re­main com­mit­ted to safe­guard­ing the health and well-be­ing of all stu­dents and en­sur­ing the high­est stan­dards across the School Nu­tri­tion Pro­gramme,” the min­istry stat­ed.

The School Nu­tri­tion Pro­gramme de­liv­ers more than 130,000 meals dai­ly across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the sup­pli­er’s op­er­a­tions are on­go­ing.