School feeding cooks in Benue protest against non-payment of allowances

Cooks and other facilitators of the Federal Government’s Home Grown School Feeding programme for pupils of primary schools in Benue State have protested the non-payment of their monthly allowances.

The women, in their hundreds, protested last week wielding leaves and chanting war songs as they demanded the immediate payment of the money owed them.

Leader of the protesters, Esther Akoh told The Guardian that Sterling Bank Plc has failed to pay them, alleging that there was an order from above not to pay them.

Akoh, who lamented the hardship caused them by the failure of government to pay them, stressed that they have worked hard and should be paid their dues.

“We have suffered for this programme. We are mothers and are struggling to feed our children.  For me, I was assigned to Elugu in Okpokwu council area. I spend over N1000 to the place on a daily basis.

“We come from different parts of the state and we are stranded. We even went to the office of Social Investment Programme and they shut the gate against us,” she said.

But the Senior Special Assistant to Governor Samuel Ortom on Social Investment Programme and its focal person, Terhide Utaan, told journalists on the telephone that his office was responsible for supervision and not payment of the cooks and the other facilitators.