By Sodeinde Temidayo David
The federal government has announced plans to increase the number of National Home Grown School Feeding Programme beneficiaries in Borno State to 600,000.
This was made known by the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Ms Sadiya Umar Farouq, at a high-level engagement session with the Governor of Borno State, Mr Babagana Zulum and some other officials of the state government.
Ms Umar Farouq said the school feeding programme, which provides one free meal to over nine million pupils in primary schools across the nation, will soon be increased to cater for more children as soon as the ongoing enumeration exercise was concluded nationwide.
According to her, the government has commenced deployment of interventions within the scheme to address the identified gaps.
The nationwide enumeration exercise is with the objective of verifying the existing data, upgrading the quality of data, and updating records to accommodate the scaling up of the program with an additional five million beneficiaries as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“We have directives from Mr President to add 5 million more pupils to the school feeding program,” she said.
From the outcome of the meeting in Borno State, plans have been set to provide funds to the state’s selected vendors and aggregators to feed 109,022 pupils and provide employment for 1554 cooks in 473 schools. With this initiative, hundreds of jobs will be created and serve as a source of income for people,” Ms Farouq added.
The Minister also revealed that the Borno State National Social Investments Programmes (NSIP) has actively sent in a request to increase the population of pupils on the program to 600,000.
From her statement, this is in progress and once it concludes the ongoing verification exercise in Borno State, there would be an update record.
The Minister also solicited continued sensitization of communities and individuals, on the importance of the program and the need for it to be safeguarded from all forms of corrupt practices by those who have been entrusted to prepare the meals, supply the food items, and even coordinate the activities.
In his response, the Governor, who was represented by his deputy, Mr Umar Usman Kadafur, thanked President Buhari for the various intervention projects currently ongoing in Borno state.
Mr Kadafur promised to align with the federal government’s policy of alleviating poverty in the country.
The deputy governor also assured that adequate resources will be provided for proper monitoring of various actors engaged by the state to ensure full compliance with guidelines and responsibilities.
Modupe Gbadeyanka