The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq has assured cooks engaged in the National Homegrown School Feeding Programme (NHSFP) whose payments were delayed due to a change in payment platform, that they will soon be paid.
In a statement made available to Blueprint in Abuja Sunday, which was signed by the Special Assistant on Media and Press Affairs, Salisu Na’inna Dambatta, reacting to complaints of delayed payment by cooks in some states of the federation, including Zamfara, Farouq said the delay arose from migrating the payment process from Remita to the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS).
The minister explained that the GIFMIS is an IT-based system being implemented by the federal government to enhance accountability and transparency in public financial management.
She noted that the aggregators in the programme had been paid along with the cooks that were captured by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), while payment is outstanding for cooks that were not captured by the NBS.
“With the conclusion of migration to GIFMIS, all pending payments will be effected within days,” she said.
