Inside Governor Johnson Sakaja’s Sh5 lunch for Nairobi school children

 The Nairobi County school feeding programme will cost parents Sh5 every day for their children’s lunch. This means that for a 13-week school term, parents will pay Sh325 for the meals under the ‘Dishi na County’ programme.

Nairobi has gone ahead of other counties to claim a share of the Sh4.9 billion budget set aside for the feeding programme across the country. The county government and the Ministry of Education have signed a memorandum of understanding that obligates the two to contribute equally to the programme for all learners in public pre-primary, primary and junior secondary schools in the devolved unit.

The county government will contribute Sh1.2 billion to the kitty, which will be matched by the ministry, meaning the other counties will only have Sh3.7 billion to share.

“We drew our budget early. The rest of the counties had not budgeted. Urban poverty bites harder than poverty in the rural areas,” Governor Johnson Sakaja told the Nation. He added that many donors have also expressed willingness to contribute to the programme.

“There’s been an overwhelming avalanche of support. Our friends from France have offered another one million Euros and many ambassadors and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) are talking to us as well as individual Kenyans,” he added.

More than 250,000 learners in Nairobi will benefit from the school meals. The county government will pay Sh25, Children Investment Foundation Fund Sh15 and the parent Sh5. The learners will be given smart wrist bands, with payment for the meals credited to a mobile wallet linked to the band.

Each learner will get 650 grammes of food and a fruit. The meals will be prepared daily from common kitchens and then distributed to schools.

“This is a transformative programme. In the 10 schools where we’ve implemented this, enrolment rate has gone up by 150 per cent. All the children who were in school before came back and another half of the number also joined the schools and the performance has also gone up,” Mr Sakaja said.

Already, construction of 10 kitchens at a cost of Sh500 million is ongoing. The biggest will be along Enterprise Road in Industrial Area, with capacity to prepare 60,000 meals a day. It’s being put up by Food4Education.

“We considered the most central places in all the constituencies and we’ll be building another six kitchens,” Mr Sakaja said.

The improved school feeding programme is part of the Kenya Kwanza administration campaign promise, targeting to benefit four million learners.

According to Mr Sakaja, the programme will adhere to public procurement laws and create employment opportunities for about 2,000 people, including farmers, traders and construction workers.

However, a lobby, Tunza Mtoto Coalition,has filed a petition challenging the county government’s role in the programme.

“The petitioners submit that there was no proper public participation ... as no notices were carried out either in local dailies, local radio stations and local television stations sensitising the petitioners and other members of public of the intended take-over of the functions of the National Government ...” the suit file further reads.

The case is set for mention on Thursday, July 27, 2023.