School feeding: FG releases N844.7m to 7 states

The Federal Government has so far released N844,360,550 for the commencement of the Homegrown School Feeding, a component of its Social Investment Programme, in seven states across the country.

The states that have received funding to begin the scheme include Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Oyo, Osun, Ogun and Zamfara.

The Senior Special Assistant to the acting President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, said this in a statement on Monday.

The Federal Government had earmarked N500bn for the SIP in the 2016 budget while the same amount had been proposed for it in the 2017 Appropriation Bill, currently before the National Assembly.

With the payment made as of the end of last week, Akande said the government had now released enough fund to start feeding more than one million pupils every school day in the seven states.

He explained that while money had been made available to the seven states, the programme had commenced in only five states — Anambra, Enugu, Osun, Ogun, and Oyo.

He stated that the scheme was expected to start this week in Ebonyi and Zamfara states that had been funded already.

Akande added, “That means the Muhammadu Buhari Presidency’s Homegrown School Feeding Programme will be feeding this week a total of 1,043,205 pupils in those seven states.”

The statement said, “Equally, a total number of 11,775 cooks have been employed to prepare the meals in those states already, while local farmers in the states are also the one producing the food prepared and served.

“Of all the states, Anambra, which was the first state to receive the Federal Government’s funding late last year, has now received three full funding tranches covering 30 school days, totalling N188,769,000. The state has a total of 937 cooks and feeding 96,489 pupils.

“In Ebonyi, the Federal Government has also released a total of N115,218,600 while 1,466 cooks have been engaged and 164,598 pupils are to be fed.

“Also in Enugu State, government has released N67,244,800 to feed 96,064 pupils and 1,128 cooks engaged.”

Akande stressed that the government had released N119,648,900 to feed 170,927 pupils and engaged 1,381 cooks in Ogun State while in Osun State, a total of N92,425,400 had been released to feed 142,193 pupils with 2,688 cooks engaged.

For Oyo State, he said a total of N72,288,300 had been released to feed 103,269 pupils, engaging 1,437 cooks, while of N188,765,500 had been released to feed 269,665 pupils with 2,738 cooks in Zamfara State.

Source: Punchng