Following audit findings… Stalled school feeding expansion programme will move ahead in 2019

Following audit findings… Stalled school feeding expansion programme will move ahead in 2019 – Education Minister

Dec 13, 2018 News

After the Auditor General red-flagged the execution of the school feeding expansion programme, Minister of Education, Nicolette Henry said that the Government is moving forward in 2019 with the expansion, which was halted to facilitate the audit.
Defending the Ministry’s budgetary allocation in the National Assembly yesterday, Henry explained that the programme will target new areas, including children of retrenched sugar workers and hinterland communities.
“We would have said to the nation that we intend to expand the school feeding programme and we did just that and we will continue to expand the programme further until we address those that are most vulnerable and disadvantaged. We will go to every vulnerable child and every vulnerable community in this country,” the Minister stated.

Minister of Education, Nicolette Henry

The Minister was questioned extensively by Opposition MP and former Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, about expenditure for the feeding programme. Manickchand had pointed out that the Ministry had not spent some $2B of its 2017 allocation, including more than $200M from the school feeding programme
“I am wondering which schools did not get fed or if it was determined to be enough to feed everybody, then why would you increase it now?” Manickchand questioned.
The Minister explained, “All schools that were already in the programme we were able to feed…The expansion, however, had to be curtailed, because that programme had to be audited and we had to wait until we got the guidance from the auditors based on what was happening, then we moved forward; that is why there was a delay so to speak.”
Manickchand noted that effectively, the programme was not executed and questioned if there was a competitive bidding process for the provision of the food items.
The Minister stated that the food items are sole-sourced from Banks DIH, which has been the case for many years.
In 2017, the sum of $2.099B was allotted for dietary under the Ministry of Education according to the Auditor General’s report. During the period under review, the net allotment transfers from Dietary scheme totaled $48.772M, giving a revised allotment of $2.050B.

According to the report, the Appropriation Accounts amounts totaling $1.727B were expended as December 31, 2017, resulting in an unspent sum of $323M. An amount of $1.727B included expenditure for the school feeding programme.

An audit examination was done on the records maintained by eleven schools, which included five and six schools in regions seven and nine respectively.
The report said that the sum of $73.644M was expended on the programme for eleven schools where 2,189 students benefitted from the programme.
However, the Auditor General noted the school could not determine whether the sum of $52.512M received by the eight schools was deposited intact, due to the absence of key documentation, including bank statements.
The AG also could not determine whether the monies were properly accounted for with respect to the eleven schools.
The report outlined that bank reconciliation statements were not presented for any of the schools.
“The absence of key control measures can lead to the preparation of wrongdoing without prompt detection. The report also highlighted the absence of supervisory checks, which is a key control, which can point to wrongdoing, prompt detection, and the safeguarding of public funds.
There was no evidence of supervisory checks of cashbooks by the management committee in three schools. Supervisory checks were also absent in the stock ledgers and goods received books for six schools in Region Nine.
Moreover, cash was kept in the personal possession of the treasurer in eight schools. This unsatisfactory situation, it was stated, could lead to wrongdoing.
In response to the findings, the Education Ministry acknowledged the lapse in the system.
The Education Minister noted that school-feeding programme is transitioning from being centrally managed to community management. The Ministry promised better monitoring will be done.