Friday, May 17, 2024 - President William Ruto’s chief economic advisor David Ndii has moved to set the record straight as to why the government has stopped the school feeding program which has been helping the poor children.
While responding to the uproar
that Ruto’s administration was discontinuing the program, Ndii explained that
the school feeding program had been allocated zero budget in the 2024/25
financial year budget estimates because it was being handled by an
autonomous entity domiciled within the Ministry of Education.
According to Ndii, the feeding
program had in the past been handled by the National Council for Nomadic
Education in Kenya (NACONEK).
NACONEK was created to meet the educational needs of the Nomadic regions through empowering
school-going children in those areas.
As such, Ndii justified the
zero-budget allocation remarking that this was not one of the core mandates of
the council.
Ndii remarked that NACONEK would
continue empowering marginalized communities through other avenues.
He added that the council would
also seek partnerships with organizations and counties that are not part of
the nomadic landscape.
“NACONEK is a generous
benefactor to other worthy causes, for example, it has recently gifted Nairobi
Schools a Ksh100 million state-of-the-art kitchen,” he stated.
While NACONEK has exited from
the school feeding scene, Ndii remarked that children from marginalized
counties would still receive food from the government.
This will be funded
through The Ministry of East African Community, Arid and Semi-Arid Lands
(ASALs), and Regional Development headed by Cabinet Secretary Peninah
Malonza.
The zero-budget allocation to
the program had raised fears that this was an end to an initiative that was
started in 1980 and benefits 2.6 million learners annually.
The Kenyan DAILY POST
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