Barely one week into the free school feeding program for public primary schools in Kaduna State, a senior education official in Zaria Local Government Area has been suspended for misconduct bordering on the disbursement of funds meant for payment of food vendors.
The Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Dr Shehu Adamu announced the suspension of the unnamed official in Kaduna on Saturday while giving an update on the implementation of the program.
His words :
“Based on our arrangement, the monies for the vendors would be deposited weekly in banks where each of the vendors’ cooperative societies opened their account. The heads of the cooperative societies will thereafter access the money and distribute same to each vendor accordingly, based on the number of pupils expected to be fed in a week at N50 per plate.
"But it was alleged that the officer gathered all the heads of the cooperative societies within the local government in his office. He collected the monies from them and was personally sharing it to the vendors which lasted up to the middle of Monday night, thereby affecting the implementation of the programme in Zaria. That is not his responsibility, and therefore, he is suspended to enable the ministry carry out full investigation into the matter.”
Adamu said that government was investigating similar occurrences in some other locations across the state
The free feeding program which aims to provide a meal a day for about 1.5 million pupils in over four thousand public schools is expected to generate close to seventeen thousand jobs in catering and ancillary services.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment