T

he administration of South Timor Tengah regency, East Nusa Tenggara, has deployed a team to investigate strange objects reportedly found in biscuit packages donated by the World Food Programme (WFP) to malnourished school children in the region.

The team comprises representatives from the Suara Sanggar Perempuan Soe foundation, the distributor of the biscuits, and from a number of related institutions.

"We will tighten the surveillance in the distribution process of the biscuits until they are in the students' hands to avoid the same incident from happening again," Regent Paulus Mella Paulus said when unveiling the team.

Paulus strongly suggested that the teachers of the food aid recipient schools thoroughly inspect the biscuits by breaking them to ensure there were no sharp objects inside them.

A similar case happened early last year at Belu regency, prompting WFP Indonesia to order a stop to the aid and call for an investigation.

Paulus expressed hopes that the incident would not stop the aid, saying a survey conducted by his administration showed the program was beneficial to the students' growth. "Only in the field, surveillance must be conducted more tightly starting from the production up to the distribution of the biscuits," he said.

A number of students of elementary schools in the regency receiving the food aid have reportedly found sharp objects, such as broken glass, soft wires and threads, inside the biscuits last week.

So far no report has been made on the impact of consuming the biscuits containing the sharp objects but both the school and the school committee have reported the case to the WFP, the police and the regency administration.

The chairperson of the school committee of state-run SDN Oelekam, Sefrit Nau, said that the teachers initially did not believe in students' complaints regarding the strange objects found inside the biscuits.

He said they had been complaining for two months but the findings were confirmed only over the weekend, when the headmaster distributed the biscuits and told the students to check them before eating.

The school's headmaster Musa Sanam said that of 70 students who were asked to have their biscuits checked before being eaten, only three found strange objects inside the biscuits.

He added that the three students were fifth-grader Sanggar Manune, third-grader Astin Mnune and sixth-grader Yanti Lasfeto.

"We will give the objects to the police as evidence," Sanam said.

Director of Suara Sanggar Perempuan Soe foundation, Rambu Atanau-Mella, said that her foundation was investigating the case to confirm whether the reported sharp objects were really found inside the biscuits provided by the WFP.