Nairobi’s public school pupils were left hungry and famished on the inaugural day of Governor Johnson Sakaja’s school feeding program.
In collaboration with the National Government and the French Government, Sakaja launched the “Dishi na County” initiative, aimed at providing complimentary lunches to all pupils attending public schools within the city.
The pupils were however required to contribute Ksh5 daily to sustain the program.
However, they were forced to go hungry on Monday, after the promised meals failed to materialize.
After having paid the stipulated amount, the pupils arrived at school on Monday without their packed lunch from home. However, they were left disappointed as Sakaja did not uphold his end of the agreement.
Furthermore, the county government remained silent on the reasons for this non-delivery of food.
This setback occurred just two days after Sakaja had proudly listed the school feeding initiative as one of his legacy projects in his role as the top county administrator.
“We have established ten kitchens to provide meals for 250,000 children, and approximately 88,000 children have already been registered,” Sakaja had declared after being ranked as the worst-performing governor.
According to Sakaja, his government intends to allocate Ksh1.2 billion to fund the initiative. The project involves cooking food at central facilities and distributing it to various schools.
Sakaja explained that these kitchens would be responsible for preparing nutritious meals. The meals would then be transported to schools using sealed containers and specialized vehicles.
“Each kitchen is expected to produce around 10,000 nutritional meals daily,” Sakaja stated.