FG school feeding programme gulps N7bn in Niger
The federal government school feeding programme has gulped N7 billion in the past three years in Niger state.
This was revealed by the Programme Manager, National Home Grown Feeding Programme in the state, Comrade Umar Ndahaba.
He said that the federal government has so far expended over N7 billion on the schools feeding programme across the 25 local government areas of the state in the last three years.
Ndahaba made this disclosure during an interactive session with newsmen at the National Social Investment Programme office in Minna, the state capital.
He stated further that over 14, 000 direct jobs have been created with 5, 971 cooks employed to feed 557, 681 public primary school pupils in the state.
The programme manager coordinator said that “in addition to these, no fewer than 6, 368 local cheese makers have been engaged to produce cheese for our school pupils on weekly basis across the state, while there are also 1, 420 local suppliers and over 800 aggregators who have been engaged in the activities of the programme.”
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According to him, the aggregators were recruited from the three senatorial zones of the state, stressing that the aggregators usually obtain food items directly from the local farmers across the state.
He however, pointed out that out of the 3, 124 public primary schools in the state, that only 2, 173 public primary schools are currently partaking in the feeding programme, while the remaining 951 primary schools are yet to be captured in the exercise.
Ndahaba stated that no fewer than six states from the six geo-political zones of the country have visited Niger state on a learning visit, stressing that this learning visit was facilitated by Action Aid International in collaboration with the Mach Arthur Foundation in 2019.
