FG Spends N999 Million Daily On School Feeding

The Federal Government says N999 million will be expended on the daily feeding of 10 million pupils under the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP).

According to NAN, Aishatu Digil, NHGSFP team lead, disclosed this at a stakeholder meeting.

Digil said Sadiya Farouq, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, had secured the approval to spend N100 per pupil daily.

She said N100 will be used to feed 9, 990, 862 pupils for 20 days in a month.

According to her, “Prior to 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 (NOA), Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), 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 Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN).

“We are planning of having ‘Egg Wednesday’, where each child in the programme will be giving 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.”

She added that the programme will ensure that poor implementation practices are tackled.