FG Set to Audit School Feeding Programme

…Urges Affected Cooks to Keep Calm

By Samuel Okon

The Federal Government has pledged its readiness to revalidate the audited number of Public primary schools and food vendors who were not captured during the last enrollment exercise in the State.

Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Alhajia Sadiya Umar Farouq made this known during the last review meeting of the programme recently at Ibom Hotel and Golf Resort in Uyo recently. Recalled that on October 15 this year, the Federal Government embarked on a monitoring exercise to ascertain the position of the programme in the State for data validation.

Sadiya appealed to the affected persons and schools who were not captured during the last enrollment exercise, said her office is seriously working towards ensuring that every valid data would be captured. Wrong Bank Verification Number, BVN, phone number and the office of the Social Investment Programme which was recently move from the office of the Vice President to the Ministry of Humanitarian Service which according to her is the reason some data were not successfully captured has been cited as the reason the data were not valid. She urged those affected to remain calm as the Federal Government is working hard to fix up the situations.

Also, the State Focal Person, Office of the Social Investment Programme, Dr. Godwin Akpan expressed satisfaction for the immediate response by the Federal Government towards addressing the issues. Dr. Akpan disclosed that the last validation exercise by the Federal Government was not in compliance with the State Government audited figure of 1,160 public primary schools in the State, adding that only 1,105 was captured. According to him the total number of cooks was also slashed to 1,436 as against 2,682 during the last validation exercise by NBS.

The current data shows that over 55 public primary schools and 1,245 cooks were not captured. He pledged the commitment of the State Social Investment Office to continue working in partnership with the Federal Government for the smooth running of the programme in the State. He admonished food vendors and coordinators of social investment programme to always exhibit a high level of responsibility and seriousness in the discharge of their assigned duties. He said forms are made available and spread  to the affected schools and members for necessary corrections that will aid the process of compiling a comprehensive data base.

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