The Federal Government says it has released enough funds to start the serving of one hot meal a day to more than one million primary school pupils across seven states in the country under the National Homegrown School Feeding Programme.
This disclosure was made on Monday by Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the acting President, Laolu Akande, while giving a media update on the Social Investment Programme of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
Specifically, a total sum of N844, 360, 550 has so far been released for the commencement of the programme in Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Oyo, Osun, Ogun and Zamfara as at the end of last week, Mr Akande said.
According to him, while funds have been released to the seven states to kick off the programme, not all of them have actually started the implementation.
In Anambra, Enugu, Osun, Ogun, and Oyo, the feeding has actually started, while it is expected to start this week in the two other states of Ebonyi and Zamfara that have been funded already.
That means the Homegrown School Feeding Programme would this week be feeding a total of 1,043,205 pupils in those seven states.
Equally a total number of 11,775 cooks have been employed to prepare the meals in those states, while local farmers are also the ones producing the food prepared and served.
Of all the states, Anambra, which was the first to receive FG 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, FG has also released a total of N115,218,600, while 1466 cooks have been engaged and 164,598 pupils are to be fed.
Also in Enugu, FG has released N67,244,800 to feed 96,064 pupils and 1128 cooks engaged.
In Ogun, FG has released N119, 648, 900 to feed 170, 927 pupils and engaged 1381 cooks, while in Osun a total of N92, 425, 400 have been released to feed 142, 193 pupils with 2688 cooks engaged.
For Oyo, a total of N72,288,300 have been released by the FG to feed 103,269 pupils, engaging 1437 cooks, while in Zamfara FG have released a total sum of N188,765,500 to feed 269,665 pupils and engaged 2,738 cooks.
