School Feeding Programme: Reps demands head count report of beneficiaries

Dr. Yemi Kale

The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee on Wednesday asked the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to provide the head count of pupils and other beneficiaries of the National Food Programme, the precursor to the School Feeding Programme of the Federal Government.

The House also demanded for a proper pre-qualification of all the food vendors for the school feeding programme in accordance with the Public Procurement Act to safeguard the lives of the pupils and other citizens.

The lawmakers made the demands at an investigative hearing on non-submission and partial submission of audited accounts of all the fully funded and partially funded federal government agencies from 2009-2019 held Wednesday at the National Assembly.

The lawmakers queried the Statistician-General of the Federation, Dr. Yemi Kale on the unverifiable data used for the feeding of the pupils.

Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Oluwole Oke, who demanded that data from the state offices of the NBS for the School Feeding Programme be made available to the committee, also warned against the mismanagement of the funds approved for the programme.







He said: “We don’t want this programme to be mismanaged. That is why we are reviewing what you have done from 2016 till date. We don’t want wastages or inefficiency.”

Recall that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari had resumed the Home Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSFP) for primary school pupils.

The minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Sadiya Umar Farouq, announced that a total of 3,131,971 households are targeted for the intervention.

Farouq explained that the resumption of the feeding scheme followed a presidential directive.



She said each household would receive a Take-Home Ration (THR) valued at N4,200 which is made up of 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 provision of take-home rations will 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 benefit from the modified programme.

“The target beneficiaries are children in primary one to three in public schools participating in the programme. 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 time-stamp.

“Identified households will be able to access take-home rations from distribution centers. Each will receive uncooked food items that have been assessed and approved by nutrition experts as adequate for the children. 6,000 schools will serve as distribution centers, except in some states with unique security and safety issues”, the statement added.