Stop the scam of ‘school feeding’ for at-home pupils

Many contradictions assail the planned resumption on 14 May of the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme in Abuja, FCT. The obvious one is the fact that pupils are out-of-school based on the directives of the Federal and State Governments to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Another is the lack of clarity as it now targets families in their homes rather than pupils in primary schools. Then there is the matter of appropriation and executing a different programme from the one for which the Federal Government received the budgetary approval of the National Assembly.

Of course, there is a relatively minor matter of executing authority in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development rather than the one responsible for education matters. Citizens can now see why the concept of feeding school children for nutrition and as a contribution to education management at primary school level is not the driver of this scheme.

Against all protestations by citizens and the dictates of common sense, Hajiya Saddiya Umar Farooq, minister, claimed the Presidency directed her ministry to proceed with the programme even as schools are closed. She has the mandate to deliver feeding support to 3.5 million homes rather than pupils. The nature and purpose of the programme have also changed though it continues with the name for which it got budgetary approval.

Before our very eyes and with brazen impunity, the Federal Government has switched a programme and is misappropriating resources. The switch is inelegant and lacking in supporting rationale.  It is an administrative error and unacceptable in financial management to switch a programme and its basis after the approval of the National Assembly.

Minister Farooq said that each household would receive a Take-Home Ration (THR) valued at N4,200. The Take Home Ration consist of a 5 kg Bag of Rice, 5 kg Bag of Beans, 500 ml Vegetable Oil, 750 ml Palm Oil, 500 mg Salt, 15 pcs of eggs, and 140gm Tomato Paste. The pricing is heavily subsidised as the market prices of these goods add up to more than N4, 200.

According to Hajiya Farooq, “The ministry in consultation and collaboration with state governments, identified the distribution of take-home rations to the households of the children on the programme as a feasible method of achieving this directive. This is a globally accepted means of supporting children to continue to have access to nutrient rich foods despite disruptions to the traditional channels of school feeding by the pandemic.

“The provision of take-home rations will, therefore, be carried out based on data provided and structures put in place by the feeding programme over the years. Kwara and Bayelsa where the programme was not fully operational before the lockdown will be able to benefit from the modified programme.”

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs spoke on the targets and modalities for the programme.

The target beneficiaries are children in primary one to three in public schools participating in the programme. A total of 3,131,971 households are targeted for this intervention. Parents/caregivers of beneficiaries are to collect the take-home rations using vouchers.

“We are employing vouchers which are QR coded, serialised with date and timestamped and identified households will be able to access take-home rations from distribution centres. Each household will receive uncooked food items that have been assessed and approved by nutrition experts as adequate for the children”.

The programme would be a mix of school and at home. The ministry said, “Over 6,000 schools will serve as distribution centres for clusters of communities except in some states with unique security and safety issues where other structures will be used”.

Neither the Ministry nor the Presidency has explained the imperative of continuing the school feeding programme while the nation’s schools are not operational. There is no reported health emergency or disaster suffered by out-of-school children at home with their parents in the FCT or any other part of the country. The School Feeding programme set out to provide one meal per child each day to all primary school pupils in Nigeria. The objectives include improving the health of school-age children, increasing enrolment in schools, enhancing their ability to retain knowledge and school completion rates.

The federal government should stop this switch of the programme into something else just so that they can justify spending the allocated funds. In the streets of Nigeria, the effort reeks of the word corruption, a favourite anathema of the PMB federal government.