Food Vendors who involve in the school feeding exercise in Rivers State have lauded the federal government schools feeding programme in the state.
The food vendors said that they had received funds from the Federal Government four times since the programme began last October.
They disclosed this during a meeting with Dr. Emmanuel Attah-led school feeding fact finding Committee of the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) for the South-South zone in Port Harcourt.
The vendors confirmed that they received money to feed the pupils for the months of October, November 2019, and January and March this year.
They said the programme kicked off in the state but was plagued by inconsistent release of funds which made it impossible for the children to be fed monthly as stated in the contract agreement.
They said they were initially directed to feed only pupils in lower primary classes (Primary one to three) at the rate of N70 per meal per child Monday to Friday before the gesture was extended to the nursery classes.
One of the vendors, Mrs. Ijeoma Obiwali, said, “I applied for the school feeding programme in 2017, but nothing again was heard about it till last year (2019) when I was contacted on phone for training to kick off the exercise.
“However it took another round of time after the training and opening of bank account as directed by the facilitators before the account was credited in October for me to feed 205 pupils of the school I was assigned.”
“But on getting to the school, I discovered that children in Primary one to three were over 400 and I cannot deny any of them the opportunity to at least taste the food. Later on, kids from the nursery section were also brought into the exercise on the same amount.
“The account was also credited in November and the children were also fed. Nothing was given in December, so they were not fed. The next time I received money was in January and March this year, and they were fed before the COVID-19 lockdown started,” she added.
Praising the initiative, the vendors said it improved public school enrolment, reduced truancy and hunger-motivated school dropout.
However, they noted that not including the upper primary classes in an environment that had many children from poor homes was counterproductive. They called for regular funding and expansion of the programme to cover all primary school pupils.
The caterers also called for a review of the N70 per meal to reflect the present economic especially in Rivers, where the cost of living is high.
In his remarks, Attah praised the vendors for extending the gesture to other children.
He assured them that the feeding programme would continue once schools resume and appealed to them to keep the good work.
Also the state Director of CCB, Mrs. Sotonye Isokariari, urged the vendors to apply love and courtesy while dealing with the children and not bad mouth them in any way.
