A non-governmental organisation, ActionAid Nigeria has commended the Kaduna state government for setting up structures to curb corruption in the implementation of the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) in the state.
Project coordinator, Kehinde Arowosegbe, gave the commendation Sunday in Zaria, in an interview with newsmen at the end of a one-day dissemination meeting with relevant stakeholders.
Arowosegbe said the bold initiative of the government would tackle the sharp practices that characterised the implementation of the school feeding programme.
He also commended Governor Nasir El-Rufai for the recent appointment of a focal person for the Social Investment Prgramme (SIP) and a programme manager for the school feeding programme and other principal officers, domiciled in his office.
“This is the best way to go as we are already feeling the impact of this laudable step toward sanitising the school feeding programme in the state,” he said.
He stated that Action Aid, along with other organisations, had been monitoring the programme under a project tagged: “Promoting Accountability and Transparency in School Feeding (PATS-F)”, funded by MacArthur Foundation.
He said the other organisations were, Connecting Gender for Development, Girl Child Concern, Federation of Muslim Women Association, Women Association and Nigerian Popular Theatre Alliance.
He alleged that monies meant for the programme were being diverted through various corrupt practices by some officials and cooks involved in its implementation.
“For example, we have discovered during our monitoring activities, that one cook is collecting over a million naira to feed more than 1000 pupils instead of the maximum of 150 pupils.
“This is corruption because there is no way one woman can feed 1000 pupils in one school.
“There are also some instances where school administrators inflated pupils enrollment to attract more allocation to the school.
“There is equally a problem with the supply chain of eggs that created a situation where one egg is shared to four pupils in some schools.
“Not only that, some teachers, school-based management committee members, including Education Secretaries and the cooks were diverting eggs and eating food meant for pupils.”
The project coordinator added that the cooks equally complained of illegal deductions and withdrawals by the banks and in some cases their husbands and children.
Arowosegbe said he was optimistic that with a formal structure in place to manage the NHGSFP, all the sharp practices that characterised the implementation of the programme would be addressed.
He said ActionAid and the other organisations were already building community structures to strengthen community participation and ownership of the programme, for sustainability.
Arowosegbe said that the NGOs had in the past weeks, carried out advocacy visits to traditional leaders in the 23 Local Government Areas of the state.
“The goal was for the community to own and sustain the school feeding programme given its laudable benefits to the communities, particularly in boosting enrolment, ensuring retention, completion and transition,” he added. (NAN)
