The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouk has disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari has approved addition of 5 million pupils into the school feeding programme of the Federal Government.
Farouk stated this on Monday in Jos while handing over 50,000 feeding utensils for beneficiaries of the National Home grown school feeding programme in Plateau State, held at the Obasanjo Model School, Jos.
The Minister represented by the Assistant Director Planning Research and Statistics in the Ministry, Ali Garba said the approval of the 5 Million pupils is in addition to the National home grown school feeding programme which provides free meal to over 9 million pupils in primary school across the nation.
“We are pleased to inform you that we have commenced deployment of interventions within the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme that will help to resolve the identified gaps including a nationwide enumeration exercise with the objective of verifying the existing data, upgrading the quality of data, and updating our records to accommodate the scaling up of the programme with an additional 5 million beneficiaries as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari”.
“The benefits of this programme and its impact on the lives and livelihood of individuals, groups and communities is clear, evident and undeniable. While addressing cross cutting issues of hunger, malnutrition and poverty, we
have thus far recorded over 9 million pupils on the programme being fed by over 100,000 Cooks. Employment is being created within the school feeding ecosystem in sectors of transportation and manufacturing”.
The Minister said the programme provides hundred of jobs with people earning the much need income.
“This programme at its core is designed to address poverty in all its forms and is a collaboration between the FG and SG,
where the FG is responsible for release of funds, guidelines, policies, and monitoring, while the state carries out the day-to-day implementation including procurement of food items, selection of cooks and vendors who prepare, cook
and serve the meals to ensure the pupils stay in schools.
She said the federal government and state government have a shared responsibility and specific roles on the provision of the free meals to the children.
“In Plateau State, the programme provides funds to selected vendors and aggregators to feed over 250,000 pupils over 340 cooks in over 2,000 schools.
Farouk while expressing the commitment of President Buhari to lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty, and advocate for the building the capacity of the state administrative teams and vendors while providing adequate budgeting support to the program.
She said utensils are strictly for pupils in primary schools across the 17 local government Area of the State.
Governor Simon Lalong, represented by his Commissioner of Special Duties Hon. Irimiya Werr while Receiving the 50,000 utensils applauded the Federal government for the initiative.
Lalong said the enrollment into primary schools has increased as a result of this initiative as well as job creation which is one of the objectives of the program.
Earlier the Focal Person National Social investment program in the state Dr. Sumaye Hamza said more than 20 billion Naira has so far been injected into the plateau economy through the beneficiaries.
“More than N2Obillion naira has so far being injected into the Plateau State economy through these beneficiaries. At this point i must recognize the untiring efforts of the Hon. Minister Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiyya Umar Farouq and her Team for ensuring that the programme is effectively implemented nationwide.
“Today is another milestone of distribution of additional utensils under the NHGSF program. We are receiving these utensils for onward distribution to the cooks.
“The state has recorded increase in enrolment of school children as a result of the NHGSF intervention. We are anticipating to feed 320,088 pupils in 2,351 schools as soon as NBS validate the state data. This will surely go a long way in adding value to the whole process of increasing the number of children that have access to quality and nourished meal while in school”.
