Reps kick over N186bn spent on FG school feeding programme
June 15, 2020
“And then the School Feeding, we are feeding an average of 10 million children nationwide. By the end of 2021, there were only two states that were not on-boarded, Kwara and Bayelsa but I’m happy to report that they are now aligned, so we are nationwide.
School feeding: FG increases consumption per child to N100
The Federal Government says it has increased its National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme of N70 per day school feeding of a child
While responding to the question on some of the challenges faced in the course of the implementation of the NSIP programmes, Dr Bindir said: “So this is how the whole landscape of the condition of customers very carefully designed, very well monitored and impact assessed, and it is working.
“Yes, there are three levels of monitoring. There is a first level for the NSIP called the independent monitors. These are the community monitoring people to make sure that these intervention programmes actually get to the people that they are designed for.
“Yes, yes. So these are the three layers. The first layer is the actual community, people who have been hired to monitor. Second layer. We’re using Non-Governmental organisations, including international operating Non-Governmental organisations. And the third layer is the monitoring of monitors, which comes from the top. So all that is a strategy to ensure that it’s working.
“The first challenge is that there are people who will try to scuttle the programme. You know, there are reports whereby we see schools that don’t exist actually reported, we find this and we drop, there are situations where schools, number of pupils in schools have been inflated, we caught those, there are areas where the cooking is not taking place and then we are paying cooks, we also checkmate those, there are areas where the aggregators for the food, they are aggregating the wrong food and they’re shortchanging the children.
2022 budget: FG earmarks about N400bn for NSIP, school feeding programmes
The school-feeding programme started in 2016 and was on till it was suspended early this year (2019). In the first two years of the project – 2016 and 2017 – the Federal Government (FG) claimed that about N49 billion was spent to feed public primary pupils in 24 states. The Special Adviser to the President on National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) Mrs. Mariam Uwais disclosed this. And, in May 2019, the Cluster Head, National School Feeding Programme, Abimbola Adesanmi revealed that the FG spent N70 per meal to feed over 9.7 million pupils in 53,715 public primary schools in 31 states for 200 days in a year under the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme for the year 2018. She, however, failed to give the exact amount spent on the school feeding programme within the period.
Therefore, if N70 per meal is multiplied by 9.7million pupils and 200 days targeted yearly, the result is N135.8 billion. If the third year spending of N135.8 billion is added to the N49 billion for the first two years of the project, the total sum spent on school feeding for 2016 to 2018 is about N184.9 billion, which is lower than the N228 billion alleged to have been spent on the programme. Note: This is an extrapolation.
As regards the education budget, in 2016, the FG allocated about N480.3 billion for the education sector, out of which N35.4 billion was for capital project, while recurrent expenditure got N444.8 billion. In 2017, N550 billion was education’s budget with N398.7 billion allotted for recurrent expenditure, N95bn was allocated to the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) while N56.7 billion was for capital project. In 2018, education sector was allotted N651.2 billion with N548.3 billion allotted for recurrent expenditure while N102.9 billion was for capital expenditure. This means the Federal Government allocated about N1.68 trillion to the education sector between 2016 and 2018, which is about 7.1 per cent of the N22.5 trillion total national budget sum for 2016 to 2018.
N63.2 bn, N32.2 bn and N124.4bn spent in 2018, 2019, 2020
…as lawmakers vow to audit programme for accountability
By Levinus Nwabughiogu
ABUJA-House of Representatives has expressed outrage over the expenditure of N186 billion on the Federal Government’s School feeding programme by the National Conditional Cash Transfer Office (NICTO).
The House frowned at the amount when the officials coordinating the programme appeared before its Committee on Public Accounts on Monday.
The Chairman of the Committee, Hon Busayo Oluwole Oke and other members of the Committee while grilling the National Coordinator of the School Feeding Programme Dr. Mrs. Sinkaye Temitope and National Safety Net Coordinating Officer, Mr. Iowa Apera on the disbursement of the N64bn out of N186 billion said to have been so far spent on feeding the school pupils alone
Registered their displeasure over the development, saying it was unacceptable.
To this end, the Committee which is also investigating the management and utilisation of the Presidential Task Force PTF on COVID-19 demanded a complete project audit of the programme immediately
According to a document submitted to the committee, the NICTO office received a credit of $400 million from the World Bank, $321 million from Abacha Restitution and another $400 million said to be balanced from the government equity fund.
But the National Coordinator told the lawmakers that the feeding programme had been on-going since 2016 when the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs initiated it and had so far gulped N186 billion in totality.
She further told the committee that the budget breakdown showed that N63.2 billion, N32.2 billion, and N124.4 billion were spent by the office in 2018, 2019, and 2020 respectively.
But two members of the committee, Hon. Chudi Momah (Anambra, APGA) and Hon. Miriam Onuoha (Imo, APC) rejected the report, insisting that many schools and communities were yet to benefit from the school feeding programme.
Momah refuted claims that 200,000 pupils from different families had benefited from the programme in Ihiala local council area of Anambra State
Consequently, the Chairman, Oke who had earlier administered an oath to the National Coordinator said that the Committee would look at the documents submitted, noting the possibility of the funds not have passed through an appropriation by the parliament.