Reps query N186bn spending on school feeding

The House of Representatives has expressed strong reservations at the reported spending of N186 billion on the Federal Government’s school feeding programme by the National Conditional Cash Transfer Office (NICTO), the coordinating office handling the project in the Presidency.

Chairman of the House Committee on Public Accounts (PAC), Hon. Oluwole Oke and other lawmakers expressed serious reservations on the amount of public funds so far reported to have been expended in the programme.

The committee, which grilled the National Coordinator of the School Feeding Programme, Dr. Mrs. Sinkaye Temitope and National Safety Net Coordinating Officer, Mr. Iowa Apera, on the disbursement of the N64 billion out of N186 billion said to have been so far spent on feeding the school pupils alone, demanded a complete project audit of the programme.

The lawmakers were enraged by a document submitted to the committee, which showed that the NICTO office received a credit of $400 million from the World Bank, $321 million from Abacha Restitution and another $400 million said to be balance from the government equity fund.

But the National Coordinator told the lawmakers that the feeding programme had been on-going since 2016 when the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs initiated it and had so far gulped N186 billion in its totality.

She further told the committee that the budget breakdown shows that N63.2 billion, N32.2 billion and N124.4 billion were spent by the office in 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively.
Other committee members notably Hon. Chudi Momah (APGA, Anambra) and Hon. Miriam Onuoha (APC, Imo,) had denounced the report, saying that many schools and communities are yet to benefit from school feeding programme.

Momah was visibly enraged as it was documented that 200,000 pupils from different families had benefited from it from Ihiala Local Council Area of Anambra State which he refuted.
The committee chairman, who also administered an oath to the National Coordinator, also said that the committee will look at the documents submitted, adding that the funds may not have passed through appropriation by the parliament.