EDUCATION Vendors pose challenge to Plateau free school feeding
In Plateau State, the home grown feeding programme was started on 23rd July with about 1,400 vendors instead of 4,473 that are supposed to serve pupils in primary 1, 2, and 3 in public schools.
The criterion followed by the authorities in the state requires that the vendors must live within their communities and must be healthy. Those found with hepatitis were replaced.
Dr. Sumaye Fadimatu Hamza, the State Focal Person of the Social Investment Programme (SIP) that is saddled with responsibility of coordinating the feeding of primary school pupils in the state said the validation issues faced by the vendors hindered the smooth implementation of the programme.
She said if the vendors were all on board, the sum of about N20 million would be spent each day in the state on the programme.
“But based on the population of about 290,000 pupils that we have, we are to spend N70 per pupil every day. When you multiply the total number of pupils by N70 we are going to spend about N20 million per day for Plateau State alone; multiply that by four weeks, excluding weekends,” she added.
Dr. Hamza who is also an Executive Assistant to Governor Simon Bako Lalong of the state on Social Investment Programme, added that the vendors must have a valid Bank Verification Number (BVN), because the transmission of the money would be done directly from the Federal Government to the vendors. It doesn’t go through the state government or local government, or her own office, she explained.
She said what hindered the success of the programme was because some of the vendors didn’t have a valid BVN. Others borrowed other people’s BVN, and “their names weren’t matching so they have not been paid.”
She said all the primary schools in the state were expected to benefit from the programme and each vendor was supposed to serve an average of 70 pupils per day: That was easier to manage and to be sure of the quality of the food.
“You will find out in a school that you have about five vendors, and one vendor has a complete record, which means the school is feeding but not all the pupils captured to be fed were fed,” she stated.
Dr. Hamza said the authorities were about to overcome the challenge after inviting the vendors to validate their BVN.
“On resumption, a decision was taken by the Federal Government that every state must have 90% of validation before feeding will commence. It took us time to effect the corrections, and we have sent data to the National Data Base. Corrections have been made; we still have about 10% that have issue of un-matched names,” she said.
She said once the Nigeria Inter Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) finished validation, it would be passed to the National Budget and Planning office to authorize the payment.
Dr. Hamza said, “We are now waiting for payment, it has reached that level, what has caused the delay was the process of validation. And I was in touch with the federal office, and they said that they are going to credit the accounts of the vendors this week. This delay is a result of sorting the data, to ensure that we have integrity of the data we are using.”
She listed some of the schools that benefited from the programme to include, Baptist Park School, Tudun Wada Primary School in Jos North Local Government, and LEA Girl, Du, Rabin Du, in Riyom Local Government as well as primary schools in Foron, Barkin Ladi Local Government.
She further stated that some schools in every local government of the state have been fed, except in Bassa Local Government because all the women in the list under the LGA were from other areas of the state.