FG’s N13.5bn School Children Feeding Plan Avenue To Commit ‘Large Scale Fraud’ – NANS

The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), has described the federal government’s plan to spend N13.5 billion on homegrown school feeding programme as an avenue to perpetrate fraud on a large scale.
NANS condemned the proposal in totality, at a time schools are shut down nationwide because of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
In a statement released on Thursday by NANS National Public Relations Officer, Azeez Adeyemi, in Abeokuta, the association said the federal government’s decision to continue with the school feeding programme, even as schools are not opened is “an avenue to further drain lean the resources of the country.”
Adeyemi alleged that the announcement made by Sadiya Umar Farouq, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, that the government will continue with the programme, is also an attempt to ridicule Nigeria.
“The Federal Government’s insistence to go ahead with the school feeding programme despite criticism by Nigerians, especially stakeholders in the education sector has shown that the programme is another way of perpetrating fraud on another large scale,” NANS said.
The association said it sought to know the rationale behind the continuation of the programme, “when priority of the government should be on finding a cure for the deadly coronavirus pandemic.”
According to NANS, it suspects that the plot to continue to feed the school children in their homes is another “sham,” adding that it is also a “smokescreen to deceive Nigerians.”
While calling for the suspension of what it called the, “structured daily looting and fraud” under the guise of home feeding of pupils, Adeyemi asked where the money for the programme will come from.
It questioned the source of the proposed N697 million to be spent daily on the school feeding programme, describing the decision as not only “reckless spending, but also a misplaced priority.”