FG Spends N1bn Daily To Feed School Children

By Tosin Olatokunbo

The Buhari administration says it will spend close to N1 billion daily to feed school children across the country this year under its National Home Grown School Feeding Programme, HGSFP. No fewer than 10 million pupils of differed shades have been captured, the government said, adding that it now cost N100 to feed a pupil from N70.

This was made known by the Team Lead of NHGSFP, Aishatu Digil, at a stakeholders’ meeting on disbursement modalities for the review of the cost of feeding in the programme in Abuja, the nation’s capital, on Tuesday.

She disclosed that the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, got the approval to spend N100 daily on the feeding of each pupil in the programme.

According to Digit, “Before this, we were feeding school children with N70 per child, per meal. This was since 2016, but the President has approved N100 upward review.

“We have all stakeholders like the World Food Programme, National Bureau of Statistics, National Orientation Agency, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, Ministries of Agriculture, Education and others to deliberate on the modalities of disbursements.

“We are here basically to look at how best we can realise the benefits of the programme based on the new approved cost to improve the standard and quality of the meal and menu for the children.

“The breakdown of the N100 is as follows; N70 is for the cost of all food items except egg, N14 for the cost of egg to be implemented through the state structures in partnership with the Poultry Association of Nigeria.

“We are planning of having ‘Egg Wednesday’, where each child in the programme will be given one egg each every Wednesday.

“N10 stipends for cooks, N5 and N6 for micronutrient fortification, payable to cooks and one naira for quality assurance, payable to supervisors, which is optional,’ Digil said.

She explained further that the federal government has also taken steps to eliminate waste and inefficiency, with the aim of making the programme effective.

“After this meeting, we will collate inputs from stakeholders and present them to the minister so that we will implement the reviewed feeding cost in the next feeding circle, which starts this month,’’ Digil said.

Last month, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Farouq disclosed that the Federal Government had decided to train 150, 000 cooks nationwide as part of its school feeding project.

Meanwhile, those following the programme informed the magazine that the focus has been on the Northern part of the country, where poverty is well endemic among parents who cannot afford to feed or send their children to school without governmnet assistance, while the southern part of the country has been barely captured by themail managers.