Governor Nasiru El-Rufai of Kaduna State, has said that the state government has decided to delay the commencement of its primary School Feeding Programme, SFP, in this session until the re-examination of the entire recruitment and payment processes was completed.
He said, “This review includes a re-examination of the entire vendor recruitment and payment processes to secure better value for money through biometric verification.
“The 2016/17 school session has began with enrollment of pupils that is projected to rise to more than 2 million pupils,” the governor said.
Addressing members of the State House of Assembly in Kaduna Wednesday while presenting the 2017 proposed budget, governor El-Rufai said the delay was to enable the state conclude its verification exercise while waiting for the reimbursement by the Office of the Vice-President (OVP) for the matching grant to cover part of the expenses incurred on the programme from January to July 2016.
“We were encouraged to be a pilot state for the School Feeding Programme and began implementing the programme when we did based on assurances that we will be reimbursed for the feeding of pupils in primary classes 1 to 3, which account for more than 60 per cent of the monthly cost of the feeding.
“We are aware that the office of the Vice President is making every effort to hasten the reimbursement to enable the state to continue this laudable implementation of a key APC manifesto commitment.
“We made a start at the rehabilitation of schools and the provision of furniture, water and toilets. With more than N6bn already spent to make over 400 schools better, a gargantuan investment is required to extend it to all our 4,265 primary schools.
“This, we are committed to achieving. We have also realized that what our state education needs is a total rebuilding programme of classrooms and physical facilities, and intensive teacher training, rather than rehabilitation of dilapidated and congested facilities manned by largely unqualified teachers.
“We intend to complete existing contracts while launching a comprehensive rebuilding programme in 2017, by God’s Grace.
“Our Health Sector made great strides with the efforts to reduce maternal and infant mortality. Strong commitments to routine immunisation continue, and our investments to protect our children from preventable diseases are being vigorously supported by our development partners.
“We have signed agreements with General Electric Healthcare for the modernisation of 255 primary health centres (one in each of our wards). The rehabilitation and preparation of these PHCs to receive life-saving equipment will kick off soon, and will be completed in early 2017.
”We continue to deliver free health care to children under-5, pregnant women and the elderly. On HIV/AIDS, we have made progress in slowing the scourge as a testing programme that covered over 126,000 pregnant women across the state has revealed about 0.3 per cent prevalence.
“We have secured accreditation for Barau Dikko Hospital as a teaching hospital for Kaduna State University, even as we continue to refurbish our general hospitals.
“We have responded to the recent malaria epidemic by making anti-malarial drugs free for all citizens and rapped up the distribution of free bed-nets in our public hospitals. The Ministry of Health and Human Services will fumigate parts of our state where the epidemic appears most prevalent to improve preventive care.”
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