Kogi Sacks 111 Cooks over School Feeding Programme Fraud Allegations

The Kogi State Focal Person of National Social Investment Programme (NSIP), Abdulkareem Onyekehi Suleiman, disclosed this 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.

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 engaged 3000 cooks for the School Feeding Program,me, adding that some cooks kept 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 are supposed to be preparing meals for school pupils receive 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 the 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 these 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 governments concerning other interventions from the government to cushion the hardship in our country.

"We are not taking it lightly 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 had been captured in the programme, said the government before now had 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 additional cooks in 2021, the Kogi State Focal Person of NSIP gave reasons why the programme has not continued for sometime.