School feeding progamme: FG releases over N844m to 7 states

The Federal Government has released N844, 360, 550 to seven states for the provision of at least one meal per day to students. Also, a total number of 11,775 cooks have been employed to prepare the meals in those states, while local farmers in the states are also the ones producing the food prepared and served. The states include: Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Oyo, Osun, Ogun and Zamfara.

While Anambra, Enugu, Osun, Ogun, and Oyo, have commenced the feeding programme, others have not actually started the implementation at the moment. Ebonyi and Zamfara are expected to start this week. Senior Special Assistant on Media & Publicity to the President, Office of the Vice President,Mr. Laolu Akande, disclosed this while giving an update on the Social Investment Programme of the present administration. Akande in a statement, said: “That means the Buhari Presidency’s Homegrown School Feeding Programme would be feeding this week a total of 1,043, 205 pupils in those seven states.” Of all the states, Anambra, which was the first state to receive the funding late last year, has now received three full funding tranches covering 30 school days, totaling N188, 769,000.

The state, which has a total of 937 cooks, feeds 96,489 pupils. Giving details of the funds, Akande disclosed that in Ebonyi, the Federal Government had also released N115, 218, 600, while 1466 cooks had been engaged to cook for 164,598 pupils. Also in Enugu State, the government has released N67,244,800 to feed 96,064 pupils, engaging 1128 cooks. Similarly, in Ogun State, N119, 648, 900 was released to feed 170, 927 pupils, after 1381 cooks had been employed, while in Osun, N92, 425, 400 was released to feed 142,193 pupils. 2688 cooks were engaged. For Oyo State, N72,288,300 was released by the federal government to feed 103,269 pupils, with 1437 cooks engaged, while Zamfara got N188,765,500 to feed 269, 665 pupils, engaging 2, 738 cooks.