Federal government has commenced the process of increasing the number of beneficiaries of the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme NHGSFP to fourteen million pupils nation wide.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Faruk stated this during a stakeholders engagement on enumeration of beneficiaries and scaling up of the program held in kaduna.
According to her, President Mohammadu Buhari had directed to scaling up numbers of the pupils benefiting from the program nation wide.
The Minister, represented by the Deputy Director Human Resources of the Ministry, Alhaji Tijjani Dabo said so far, over nine million pupils benefit from the free nutritions meal daily nation wide, stressing that, they have been mandated to reach an additional five million pupils by 2023.
She noted that, the enumeration exercise was to verify, and update the number of beneficiaries in the state.
Hajiya Sadiya Umar Faruk further stated that, they are working with critical stakeholders such as National Bereau of statistic, Ministry of Education, UBEC, National Orientation Agency among other stakeholders to verify the existing number of beneficiaries of the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme and update the record for transparency and accountability.
Hajiya Sadiya Umar Faruk explained that, the purpose of the meeting was to strengthen partnership and mutual recognition on the need to do more on the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme NHGSFP to bring more Nigerians under the umbrella of the government’s social protection mechanism.
” With over 100,000 cooks employed, and more than 100,000 small holderfarmers participating in this value chain, the NHGSFP which is a serious potential for socio-economic development and it needs to be strengthened, scaled up andsustained nationwide”” Specifically, it is aimed at the provision of one nutritious meal to all pupils in public primary schools in classes 1 to 3 “
In a remark, Kaduna State Focal Person, National Social Investment Programme, Saude Amina Atoyebi expressed the state’s delight with the timely initiative to enroll the beneficiaries of the school feeding programme.
Saude Atoyebi who stated that the state government was committed to providing all the needed support to the federal government team to ensure successful excercise, urged the team to ensure a diligent and transparent exercise.
Aminu Dalhatu