Mrs. Shimite Bello is the focal person for the federal government home grown school feeding programme in Delta state. The programme was launched in Abuja by Acting President Yemi Osibanjo. In this interview with Austin Oyibode of ZENITHBLOG.com, Mrs. Bello gives a countdown of how the state has fared in the state. Excerpts:
Tell us the situation so far about the federal government school feeding programme in Delta state
The home grown school feeding programme began in Delta state last year with the selection of cooks from the various local government areas of the state.
We have about 1113 primary schools. We are feeding children from primary one to three. That is the federal government’s directive. We attached caterers according to the yardstick we were given. No caterer should have more than 150 children.
We also undertook medical checks for HIV/AIDs, tuberculosis and hepatitis B as well as other transferable diseases because we are dealing with small children. This is to ensure that we have healthy children. We had over 10,000 applications for people who wanted to be cooks. We ended with about 2113 caterers that had placements. We tried to do our selection process as transparent as possible.
One of the strategies we used was that the person must be resident in the community, with a walkable distance from the school. The person must also have a child, grandchild, niece or some relative in the school because it is very important if you have a relative in the school, there is the possibility of cooking very good food for them.
We also took our selection process through the ward structure, not the political one but the community ward. The traditional ruler for the local government must agree that everything is acceptable to them. We were billed to start in December but we still had issues and so we couldn’t start.
Mrs. Shimite Bello, focal person for federal government school feeding programme in Delta state. Photo: Austin Oyibode
We listened to all suggestions from NGOs and CAN to ensure we don’t have a clash in the process. At the end, we were able to come up with a list that the community found acceptable. We finished all these sometime in March, that was the end of 2nd term and we started the feeding 23 of May. All our caterers needed BVN before they could be paid.
But what was most important was not just getting the BVN but the BVN must agree with the national inter-banking service. After the first 875 was paid, another group of 100 was cleared, then another 400 was cleared.
Currently, we have over 1383 caterers that are currently being paid. We have about 700 that have not been cleared. We hope to use this public holiday period to clear all of them. This is because the children that have not started eating are not happy.
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The process is being handled by Fidelity Bank headquarters in Victoria Island. It is bank to bank transaction. The menu we are running, we are mixing foreign food with home grown food. We have yam porridge for Monday, pasta for Tuesday, jollof beans for Wednesday, pasta for Thursday, we have jollof rice for Friday.
For the porridge, it is either plantain, sweet potato or yam porridge, depending on what is grown in that area. Now the problem we are having is locating 500 tubers of yam, our people don’t farm. There are so many things they don’t have. We tried Ebonyi state and others for rice. They too want to use their own.
A lot of people have begun to farm now that this is going on. We are also having a challenge to meet up with tomatoes. But now people are beginning to farm the vegetables because all these foods must have vegetables in them.
Once the state can be self-sufficient, we can start to feed them with the other food because we needed to ensure that the children are feeding daily. I think that in a nutshell is how transparent we can be. Every decision I make, I always get back to federal to give feedback on how it is for us here.
Some people are complaining in the state that they have not seen this programme in schools in their areas
I just told you that 700 caterers have not been paid. It means whatever schools they are attached to, they can’t start feeding. Only 1300 caterers have been paid, so if you go to the schools where the caterers have been paid, they have not started feeding. The schools where they have not been cleared with inter banking, nothing can happen there. Hopefully, before September, we will clear all of them.
Mrs. Shimite Bello, focal person in charge of the federal government school feeding programme in Delta state
For those schools that have not started feeding, it means the caterers attached to them have not been cleared. If they are not cleared, they can’t be paid. Some of them have issues with BVN. For instance, when they registered with us, they called themselves maybe Oluchi Nwabueze.
But in their BVN, they wrote Oluchi Chinyerem. To the bank, these are different human beings. What you fill for us must be what is in your BVN. Some did their BVN when they were single. Now, they have married.
Some of them don’t use their own BVN, they use their husband’s BVN. Some of their husbands have said the money must be paid into their accounts. For as long as that is their position, they will never get paid. So, when their husbands see that nothing is happening, they will now break. You know in Delta, they are very stubborn.
The BVN must march with the name sent in. So, that is why we are going back and front, that is the only reason many have not been paid. The women and their husbands know why they have not been paid.
There is a little bit of fear in some households that the woman when she starts getting this money, maybe she will grow wings. I don’t know what is happening but the bottom line is that many of them are now realizing that nothing is going to change unless they have the authentic BVN. And we don’t want the wife to do anything without the support of her family. We don’t want to break up any home.
Now, let’s look at your monitoring strategy. You know these people are in the rural communities and you are in Asaba. So, how do you know that this project is being carried out in the rural areas?
We have a very good monitoring strategy. First of all, we have the CIEs. They are in charge of all the head teachers in the schools. The head teachers have schedules of cooks that have been paid. So, if a head teacher knows that her children are supposed to eat at such a time, I think that is enough for her to move.
The cooks understand this. There is a document you must fill when are serving the children food. When it is evident that you are not serving the children food, your payment can be stopped.
Acting President Yemi Osibanjo. He launched the school feeding programme in Abuja
Minus the ministry of education, we also have the ministry of health. They have health officials who check what they are cooking. If you are not cooking, it means you are not interested in your next payment. Like I told you, 10,000 people applied, we could only take 2000. So, we have people on wait list in every ward, ready to take up the job. So, if you are not serious with it, that won’t be a problem.
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Also, remember I said in the selection of these cooks, we worked with the community leaders not the political structure, women leader, youth leader and the president general of the communities. It is their children that will eat the food. When your children are not eating, won’t you shout? Look, we have petitions before us showing all forms of misbehaviours. Trust me, Deltans will tell you whether they are eating or not.
The traditional ruler and CAN are involved. NGOs are involved in the monitoring. Our biggest monitors are the children, they will not lie. If they have not eaten, they will say it. So, I think we have a very tight, solid and well-structured monitoring system.
You said yam is not in Delta…
Cuts in! It’s not produced in all the communities, so you find that in some communities they have plantain, they don’t have yam as much as needed. In some, they have sweet potatoes. What we said is that if you have sweet potato, make sweet potato porridge, if it is plantain you have make plantain porridge. If it is yam you have, make yam porridge. We have to buy the yam on ground. It is the yam grown and produced in the state we are talking about. If it is getting any yam, there are trailer loads of yam coming to Delta every day. It is not affordable.
What we grow here is sweet potato, yam and plantain. Plantain, being the most readily available and affordable. No two states will have the same menu, you will work with what you have in your state.
That means the states are free to determine the kind of food they want…
Cuts in! I don’t expect that children in Kano will be eating plantain, where will they see the plantain in Kano. You will cook what you have. That is what home grown means, you will cook what the children know. That is why we said almost every woman can be part of this programme. They make what they normally make for their children. But they will have an instruction, whatever you are cooking, let there be spinach or scent leaves or pumpkin.
School children being fed in the home grown feeding programme. Photo: NigerianEyeonline
How has this affected attendance of school? Has if influenced increase in attendance?
It has increased attendance in school. It has increased memory retention of the children. They are ready to learn because they know that at break time, food is ready. So that keeps them in school. It has done well for the children. Our governor being a medical doctor knows the importance of a child being well fed. It’s a good programme that the Delta state government embraced.
Generally, what is the essence of this programme?
The essence of this programme is to increase enrollment of children in school. To prevent the children from falling ill easily. A child that is hungry can catch anything in the air. If they eat well, their immune system is higher. They can fight basic diseases like cold, malaria and tiredness. It will help fight rickets, kwashiorkor and some other ailments. We also insist on meat boiled with biscuit bone for casium to make sure they have healthy bone and strong teeth. But basically it is their health, to ensure there is no hunger among the children when they are in school.
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Also, to ensure peace at home. You know no matter how it goes, your child will eat before they come back and they behave better. It is a show of love for children, if they have never known love, at least through food they know love. Maybe we will see less miscreants among them if the programme continues. Because they would have known that they have a government that cares for them.
Can you tell us how much has been pumped in in the state?
N225,896,300 from the federal government has been spent in Delta. The money from the state government is put into the monitoring. This involves getting the documentation, structures and other things to make the programme functional in the state. The federal government only pays for the food. This N225.8m is from the federal government for the term that has just finished. That means next term, another amount will be released for the project.
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