Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has sent a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to the Buhari administration to publish details of its home feeding programme or face a lawsuit in seven days.
SERAP is requesting names of the suppliers and contractors, the procurement rules, including bidding processes, the total budget, and all designated voucher distribution and collection sites for the implementation.
The organisation also wants information on the number of states to be covered during the COVID-19 crisis, projected spending per state, details of the mechanisms and logistics that have been put in place to carry out the programme.
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Sadiya Umar-Farouk, last week, announced that the government would start feeding school children in their homes starting from Abuja, Ogun and Lagos states.
In the May 9, 2020 FOI sent to Farouk, SERAP urged her to make the scheme transparent.
It stressed that this would address public skepticism regarding the ability of the government to satisfactorily implement the programme, promote openness, allow Nigerians to track its implementation and hold suppliers and contractors to account.
“The government has a responsibility to ensure that these requirements and other anti-corruption controls are fully implemented and monitored and to ensure that the programme benefits the children and families who need it the most.
“We urge you to also establish an online national database for all suppliers and contractors responsible for carrying out the programme to feed school children in their homes, which is expected to cover over three million households in Lagos and Ogun states, and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”
SERAP said it would be grateful if the requested information is provided within one week of the letter’s receipt.
“If we have not heard from you by then, the Registered Trustees of SERAP shall take all appropriate legal actions under the Freedom of Information Act to compel you to comply with our request”, it threatened.