The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, says the statement by the ICPC that N2.6 billion worth of school feeding funds were misappropriated was twisted and misinterpreted by mischief makers and directed at the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs.
The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement released on Tuesday in a bid to dissociate itself from a trending report.
Nairametrics had reported yesterday that the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, revealed that it found N2.67 billion which was meant for the provision of school feeding to federal colleges during the COVID-19 lockdown, in some private accounts.
“We observed that transfers to sub-TSA were to prevent disbursement from being monitored. Nevertheless, we discovered payments to some federal colleges for school feeding in the sum of N2.67 billion during lockdown when the children were not in school, and some of the money ended up in personal accounts. We have commenced investigations into these finding,” Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, Chairman of the ICPC said.
The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs said that the “statement by ICPC was twisted and misinterpreted by mischief makers and directed at the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs.” The Ministry added that the Federal Government Colleges’ school feeding is different from the Home Grown School Feeding which is one of its Social Investment Programmes.
“That the over N2.5 billion which was reportedly misappropriated by a senior civil servant (name withheld) took place in a different ministry and not the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development,” it stated.
The Ministry said that the N16 billion in total recovered by the ICPC was paid into a private account for “non-official purposes,” and wasn’t paid into an account belonging to the Ministry.
It also said that the ICPC recovered N16 billion worth of assets from the said ministry which was paid into an individual account for non-official purposes and not the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
“The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development describes those casting aspersions on the Minister Sadiya Umar Farouq as malicious and unfair and calls on The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC to publish the names of persons, federal colleges and school heads whose names have been found to be associated with the missing funds and also freeze the accounts where the said funds were diverted,” the statement added.
Nairametrics reported in August that the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, said the FG had only spent about N523.3 million on the school feeding program during the lockdown.