The Federal Government said it has spent N6.204bn in the school feeding programme, an integral part of its Social Investment Programmes (SIP), this year in 14 states during the school year ending August 2017.
The amount, according to a statement by Laolu Akande, Senior Special Assistant on Media & Publicity to the President, Office of the Vice President, covered 2,827,501 school children beneficiaries, including Enugu, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Ebonyi, Zamfara, Delta, Abia, Benue, Plateau, Bauchi, Taraba and Kaduna.
The number of beneficiaries, the statement noted, on course to achieve the Muhammadu Buhari administration’s “projection to feed over three million pupils this year under the National Homegrown School Feeding Programme, one of its four ongoing SIP schemes.”
To achieve this, Akande said a total of 33,895 cooks have been engaged in the communities where the schools are located across the 14 states, Ogun State got the lion’s share of N1,042,217,400 to feed 231,660 schoolchildren, paying a total of 2,205 cooks.
Osun State followed with N1,000,394,888 for the feeding of 151,438 children, through 2,863 cooks; with Anambra receiving N693,013,300 to feed 103,742 children, paying 1,009 cooks; Enugu State followed with a total of N 571,877,400 and 108,898 children, paying 1,276 cooks, while 835,508 pupils in Kaduna state received a total of N499,985,500, a total of 9,857 cooks paid.
In Oyo state, where N490,296,800 was released by the FG for the feeding of 107,983 children, 1,372 cooks were engaged; Zamfara State received N402,295,600 for the feeding of 107,347 schoolchildren and 1,127 cooks were engaged; just as 163,137 Ebonyi State pupils were fed with N344,633,100 via 1,453 cooks.
Delta State received a total of N225,896,300 for the feeding of 141,663 pupils, paying 1,364 cooks; Abia and Benue states received a total of N128,763,600 and N337,157,800 respectively to feed a total of 61,316 and 240,827 pupils respectively; engaging 750 and 3,344 cooks respectively.
Plateau and Bauchi states received a total of N133,187,600 and N214,909,101 for the feeding of a total of 95,134 and 307,013 pupils respectively in the states. Also, 1,418 cooks have so far been engaged in Plateau state, with 3,261 in Bauchi state. For Taraba state, a total of N120,284,500 was paid and 171,835 pupils have thus far been fed, with a total of 2,596 cooks paid.
“More States and primary school pupils across the country are expected to benefit from the feeding programme by the time schools reopen next month for a new session,” the statement added.