Unanswered questions on management, transparency of Sakaja's Dishi na County

It is almost two years since the inception of Dishi na County programme in Nairobi, a school feeding programme targeting learners in public primary and ECDE schools in Nairobi County.

However, a lot of questions remain unanswered. The school feeding programme is one governor Johnson Sakaja’s pet project but remains shrouded in mystery.

The latest report by the Auditor General has opened the lid on the operation of the programme including questions on how Sh145 million donated by the French government was spent.

And now the Nairobi County Assembly wants the Executive to shed light on transparency and accountability in the management and the operation of the school feeding progrmame.

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For this reason, the Ward Rep noted that such factors have hampered the implementation of the programme in a transparent manner as he requested the total amount contributed by the parents since the inception of the programme.

He wants the Executive to reveal the total amount contributed by local donors or well-wishers and the number of bank accounts under which the Dishi na County operates.

The MCA also sought to understand the reason the county was using a limited company to manage the programme and the agreement between the County Executive and Food for Education company.

According to 2023/24 audit report, the auditor general stated that County Executive entered into a contract with Food for Education on December 5,2023 for the provision of school feeding services as part of the Dishi na County Nairobi School Feeding Programme for one year at a rate of Sh25 per plate.

The report says a review of invoices and payments made indicated that organisation invoiced a total of Sh345,961,676 at a rate of Sh25 per plate and was paid Sh262,262,167 during the financial year under review.

However, it was noted that learners pay the organization an amount of Sh5 directly per plate for the meals provided, therefore the County Executive should have paid the organization Sh20 per plate, as part of the contract cost of Sh25.

Instead, the County paid an amount of Sh25 for each plate served, resulting in the implementer earning an amount of Sh30 per plate instead of the contracted amount of Sh25.

In addition, the County Executive engaged Food for Education for a pilot exercise, however, no agreement or memorandum of understanding was signed between the County Executive and the Company.

Therefore, the audit could not establish how the Company was engaged to provide the services.

The auditor general further says, review of the documents and interviews with Management revealed that in September, 2023, the Embassy of France pledged financial support to Food for Education for delivering the meals for 25,000 of the most vulnerable children in public primary and ECDE schools in Nairobi County.

 The pledged support amounted to approximately Sh145,725,000, which was disbursed directly to Food for Education but the audit could not ascertain the accountability for these funds.

“In addition, there were no established measures by the County Executive regarding the management of donations received, as there were no guidelines in place for handling such donations,” the reports stated.

The auditor general’s report further raises questions about irregular procurement of proposed construction of the central kitchen, one of the programme’s components.

The reports say in part, examination of procurement records in respect of the construction of the central kitchen awarded at a contract sum of Sh32 million indicate two bidders submitted tenders.

“However, the review of each evaluator’s scores indicated that none of the evaluator’s signed their individual scoresheets. Further, both bidders were classified as responsive and evaluated based the technical criteria, which they both met,” the report says

Adding, “despite this, the tender evaluation report stated that the first bidder was non-responsive and eliminated at the preliminary stage contradicting the individual committee member scores.”

This is not the first time that the programme is coming under scrutiny over its management.

Last year, the Assembly Health Committee raised some questions about the programme during the grilling of County Executive committee member Susan Silantoi.

Silantoi told the Committee, which is chaired by Maurice Ochieng, that the County was yet to put in place regulations for the Dishi na County funds.

At the same time, she said there has not been any direct exchange of funds between the county and the donor.

“We submitted regulations of the fund to the Assembly in December but were told they have to go to the delegated committee first, so up to now they have not been approved,” she said.

The donor funds were paid to a non-profit organisation which is the implementing partner in charge of the Dishi na County programme.

The CECM revealed that the county had used approximately Sh600 million on the feeding programme.

During the 2023/24 Financial Year, a total of Sh1.7 billion was allocated towards the programme and additional Sh400 million in the supplementary budget for the year 2024/2025.

Under the Programme, the County contributes Sh25 for every child while parents pay Sh5. Another Sh15 is contributed by the fund’s partners and well-wishers.

CEO Food for Education, Wawira Nyambura, told the committee that about Sh140 million was received as donation to support 25,000 children who are unable to pay the Sh5.

However, Ochieng, who is the Mountain View MCA, said the Assembly Health Committee sought to establish how the funds have been spent.

“The Health CEC told us that they have never received any money from the donors but we can remember very well the governor met a French envoy last year who offered support of about Sh140 million,” Ochieng said.

Meanwhile some quarters have been observing that the funds ought to be used to expand Early Childhood centres in the city so as to accommodate more learners.

Just before the launch of the programme, Ouko Muthoni, an Education Rights specialist wrote to the governor indicating that there were more needy children in non-formal schools in Nairobi than there are in public primary schools.

The former CECM for education in Nairobi noted that some Wards in Nairobi don’t have Primary schools adding that out of 250,000 children of ECDE going age in Nairobi, the county only has 28,000 children in its public ECDE centres.

In the open letter to the governor, Muthoni noted, “feeding children from public schools only therefore means the governor will only be feeding 11.2 percent. It is clear that the feeding programme will be further extending inequality,” Muthoni wrote.