Staff writer TSHIRELETSO MOTLOGELWA does a Michael Moore on KFC and finds that the fast food conglomerate does not sponsor SOS Children's Village as it claims on its food packages.

As I am finishing an interview and my Twister Meal at the KFC joint in the Main Mall, I take time to admire the marketing prowess of the fast food conglomerate. I pick up the tomato sauce sachet with the old man's portrait, whose smiling face sports a goatee and thick-rimmed glasses.

I am bored and so I get restless. I grab the sachet of unused tomato sauce. I start pressing on the belly of the sachet, wondering how hard I will have to press before the red contents gush out of the edges.

I turn over the sachet to have a read of the ingredients inside. Right at the bottom in small writing I find, "KFC is a proud sponsor of SOS Children's Villages".

Marketing is all about sentimentality. Like when chocolate is associated with romance. Or when beer marketers link the bitter liquid with football and huge muscles. I suddenly feel good about my full belly. I am happy to find that not only was I filling my belly, I was also helping the children at Tlokweng SOS Village.

My belly gets full, an orphan gets help. Can't argue with that. I have a soft spot for Tlokweng, especially the SOS Children's Village. Tlokweng is where I spent my early teens attending Tlokweng Community Junior School. So I like Tlokweng and I love the SOS Children's Village even more.

I think they are doing a great job in an increasingly challenging environment for children. Children are faced with difficult situations in the current environment. Families break up. Unemployment is rife, and the social welfare system does not really manage to handle the situation.

I did not go into KFC to help sponsor the SOS Children's Village. I know you know that. I went there for my own individual needs, but I did not mind that some little girl in Tlokweng would benefit from my assistance while I was at it.

But then later on I get back to the newsroom and decide to check whether there is any mention of that sponsorship anywhere online. I turn to the lazy journalist's instrument, the beloved Google.com. I google "SOS Tlokweng, KFC".

On a website called Complaints Board, Derek James of the SOS Children's Village, riles against the conglomerate, "In Botswana, KFC condiment packets claim to be a proud sponsor of SOS Children's Villages.

Each time a customer buys food at KFC they are under the impression that their payment in some way helps SOS Children's Villages in Botswana - yet we receive NOTHING. We ask one of the managers - and she promises to "get back to us".

I wink and recheck. "Yet we receive NOTHING"? I start salivating. I think I have inadvertently fallen headlong into a story. I get James on the phone. He laughs when I tell him where I met him and what he was up to when I met him. "Yeah, exactly as I put it.

They do not donate anything to us. It's ok for them to say they donate to whoever if they in fact do so, but I find it frustrating that that's what they are claiming and yet we get nothing".

Time to check the KFC people. The local management, after a lot of pointless conversations and excuses, refer me to South Africa where their headquarters are.

I call a lady called Sithembile Shabangu, a PR manager in their social responsibility program.

"I was looking at your packaging and I realise that it's written that you sponsor the SOS Children's Villages," I put it to her.

"Well we do," she responds.

"No, in Botswana you don't".

"Where do you get that from? We sponsor the SOS down here in South Africa," she insists.

"But your sponsorship of SOS in South Africa has nothing to do with the SOS here," I say, adding "The SOS here has no relationship whatsoever with any of those in South Africa".

"But do the customers have a problem with this or this is just your personal position?"

"That's beside the point. I think it's unfair for someone to think that they are making some sort of contribution to a charitable endeavour, only to learn they are not," I state.

Shabangu explains that all KFC outlets in the subcontinent get their supplies from the South African headquarters and so the labelling may be this way because the supply is from South Africa.

"I would still think a customer in Botswana would love to know that what is written on there is true," I say.

"Well, if you want us to change that we would be happy to do so. We just never thought it would be a problem as such", adds Shabangu, indicating that the conglomerate never intended to cause this annoyance to customers.

"It would be nice if you changed I guess," I add. We say bye. She really sounds like a helpful person compared to the local managers who wanted to put me through bureaucratic entanglements.

When I switch to my work email address, Shabangu has sent an email. "KFC Social Responsibility Trust, as a socially conscious corporate citizen, KFC has been supporting the SOS Children Villages as a global organisation for the past 12 years. KFC communicates this partnership through its packaging, not just the tomato sachet and KFC never intended to mislead the Botswana public regarding KFC's social responsibility efforts," she says.

"KFC has been supporting the SOS Children's Villages as a global organisation"...which global organisation? KFC or SOS Children's Villages?

Or perhaps I am just nitpicking. I would have done with the interview, the email does not explain anything further but I hope the labelling is changed to suit the local market.

Or better still, I hope next time a source takes me to KFC and I order my Twister meal, some little amount will go to those Tlokweng SOS kids. That would be nice. But that's up to KFC.