But on Wednesday Pietermaritzburg High Court judge Mokgere Masipa discharged the earlier interdict‚ allowing the MEC to appoint new service providers who had bid for contracts as part of the feeding programme.
The matter was struck from the roll.
The consortium alleged that the tender process had been fraught with corruption and that some companies did not meet the requisite criteria.
In an affidavit before court‚ the NSNP’s Nonkululeko Ndlela said that they had not been aware of the initial interdict and only found out about the court order several days after it was granted.
She said the group of businesspeople were concerned only with their bottom line.
“This is not about ensuring that children are fed‚ it is about the applicants maintaining their income stream while the internal appeal process resolves itself.” She said that while the earlier interdict allowed the erstwhile contract holders to keep feeding children in 19 districts‚ over 1‚000 districts would not have a feeding programme provider.