The Kogi State Government has sacked 111 cooks in 2022 for allegedly engaging in fraudulent activities during the Federal Government’s school feeding programme in the State.
The Kogi State Focal Person of National Social Investment Programme (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’s regime with the aim of improving the health status, enrollment and educational outcomes of public primary school pupils.
Onyekehi averred that the Kogi State Government had engaged 3000 cooks in Kogi for the school feeding programme. He added that some cooks keep engaging in sharp practices after receiving payment from the 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 programmes and we are also working with anti – graft agencies and secret service that are part of this programme.
” We have had cases where some cooks that were supposed to be preparing meals for school pupils received money and they did not prepare the meals. We have about 3000 cooks and we have disciplined 111 of them in recent times.
“We recommend them for removal from the scheme and we have reported them to the appropriate authority for discipline and punishment they deserve. We found out that they received money and they did not prepare meals for our school pupils.
” Some of them are also not doing it in line with the guidelines. All these things, we have our report and we have given appropriate punishment. We have also made arrests of some people who commit fraud in the various Local Governments concerning other interventions from the government to cushion the hardship in our country.
“We are not taking it likely from anybody. Immediately the agency gets its report, we always swing into action and sanction whoever violates the programme or defraud the people of Kogi State.
Onyekehi, who disclosed that not all schools have been captured in the programme, 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 over 800 cooks in 2021, the Kogi State Focal Person of NSIP gave reasons why the programme has not continued for sometimes.
“The Federal Government is carrying out enumeration and revalidation exercises to continue the process. They could not approve the additional cooks yet to capture more schools that will accommodate more pupils that have not benefited from the programme.
Another challenge is that for over a year, we have not done school feeding programme. “Why, because of electioneering, change of government and stabilization of the ministry to continue the programme.
“In 2020, there was no school feeding program 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 programme.
“We hope that in the renewed Hope mantra of President Tinubu, we are going to hit the ground running and make the programme 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 complement 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.
