From Joseph Amedu, Lokoja
Onyekehi
The Kogi State Government has sacked 111 cooks in 2022 for allegedly engaging in fraudulent activities during the Federal Government school feeding program in the State.
The Kogi State Focal Person of National Social Investment Program (NSIP), Abdukareem Onyekehi Suleiman disclosed in Lokoja at a public hearing held at the Kogi State House of Assembly on A Bill for a Law for The Establishment of Kogi State Social Investment Programme Agency
It was gathered that, the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) was introduced during former President Muhammadu Buhari regime with the aims of improving the health status, enrollment and educational outcomes of public primary school pupils.
Onyekehi averred that, the Kogi State Government had engage 3000 cooks in Kogi for the school feeding program, adding that, some cooks keeps engaging in sharp practices after receiving payment from Federal Government to prepare meals for School pupils.
He said “Whatever you do in a public office, it is important you ensure accountability and ensure sanctions in case of fraud. We are coordinated. We have Local Government coordinators monitoring the programs and we are also working with anti graft agencies and secret service that are part of this program.
” We have had cases where some cooks that are supposed to be preparing meals for School pupils receives money and they will not prepare the meals. We have about 3000 cooks and we have disciplined 111 of them in recent time.
“We recommend them for removal from the scheme and we have reported them to the appropriate authority for discipline and punishment they deserved. We found out that they received money and they will not prepare meals for our school pupils.
” Some of them are also not doing it in line with the guidelines. All this things, we have our report and we have given appropriate punishment. We have also made arrest of some people who commit fraud in the various Local Government concerning other interventions from Government to cushion the hardship in our Country.
Onyekehi, who disclosed that not all schools have been captured in the program said the government before now has been feeding 177,000 pupils in Kogi State and their target is to capture all the public primary schools in the state to accommodate all pupils in primary 1-3.
While noting that the State Government last recruited additional over 800 cooks in 2021, the Kogi State Focal Person of NSIP gave reasons why the program has not continued for sometimes.
” The Federal Government is carrying out enumeration and revalidation exercise to continue the process. They could not approve the additional cooks yet to capture more schools that will accommodate more pupils that have not benefitted from the program. That is one challenge.
Another challenge is that, for over a year, we have not done school feeding program. “Why, because of electioneering, change of government and stabilization of the ministry to continue the programme.
“In 2020, there was no school feeding programme at all because of the COVID-19 pandemic and 2021 began towards end of the year. As a result we have been relatively inconsistent in the program.
“We hope that in the renewed Hope mantra of President Tinubu, we are hoping to hit the ground running and make the program to be more consistent and frequent in a bid to meet the objective of the Government. On our own, we are going to initiate our own state policy that will compliment the policy of the federal government by doing it differently in line with the peculiarity of our State to ensure we alleviate poverty in Kogi State”he stated.
