School Feeding: FG handover 150,000 Feeding Utensils To Jigawa State

Blessing Bature, Abuja

The federal government through the Federal ministry of humanitarian affairs Disaster Management and social development has handed over about 150,000 Utensils for Beneficiaries of the National Home-Grown School Feeding Program to Jigawa state government.

The minister of humanitarian affairs, Disaster Management and social development, Sadiya Umar-Farouq who was ably represented by the Permanent secretary, Bashir Nura Alkali made this known during the handing over of the utensils to Jigawa State Government yesterday that this program at its core is designed to address poverty in all its forms and is a collaboration between the federal government and States where the federal government is responsible for the release of funds, guidelines, policies, and monitoring, while the states carry out the day-to-day implementation including procurement of food items, selection of cooks and vendors who prepare, cook and serve the meals for the pupils.

Farouq stated that the benefits of this program and its impact on the lives and livelihood of individuals, groups and communities is clear, evident and  undeniable. While addressing cross cutting issues of Hunger, Malnutrition and Poverty, we have thus far recorded over 9 million pupils on the program being fed by  over 100,000 Cooks across the Nation. In Jigawa State alone, feeding is taking place in 2,180 primary schools, involving 490,874 pupils, 5,267 cooks in 27 LGA across the state.

"We are here today to hand over about 150,000 feeding utensils to the Jigawa State Government for the use of the benefitting pupils Of the National Home-Grown School Feeding Program. This is in addition to the over 500’000 feeding utensils the FG provided to the Jigawa State School Feeding Program in 2018.

"We are pleased to note that we have also commenced deployment of interventions  within the National Home-Grown School Feeding Program that will address the identified gaps including a Nationwide enumeration exercise across the Nation with the objective of verifying the existing data, upgrading the quality of data, and updating our records to accommodate the scaling up of the program with an  additional 5 million beneficiaries as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
 
She said additionally an operational review is underway, fully supported by experts and technical partners to ensure sure that this program succeeds in its objectives and capitalizes on gains and benefits such as women empowerment, supporting the education of the girl child, creating employment, and improving intergovernmental collaboration. 

She said, the ministry has deployed an extensive, layered and technology-supported  monitoring system that will give real time information of how the program is being implemented and the areas that need urgent intervention and correction, adding that this intervention today, is only one out of the several strategic plans of our Ministry that seeks to ensure that the target pupils have the best experience of hygiene and safety during their consumption of these  free meals.

Minister assured that the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development will continue to improve service delivery on all its social interventions  and our leadership  role on the National Home-Grown school feeding program. I wish to sincerely thank HE the Executive Governor of Jigawa State for his support to this programme at all times. I wish to also commend our NSIP focal person and programme manager for their diligence in ensuring the prominence of the state under th8s programme.

The Jigawa state governor, Alhaji Muhammad Basaru Abubakar who was ably represented by the deputy governor Mal Umar Namadi appreciated the honorable minister for her hardwork and courage, "we say a very big thank you to Mr president, we the Jigawa people will never forget all these efforts of Mr President for the market, Traders moni, N-Power, and school feeding Programme it is a very big support for the Jigawa state people.

"We can not thank Mr President enough and minister for what they have been doing to us but we also ask for more because we know Baba and the Minister have that act of supporting the poor and Vulnerables, he said.

E be like say this school feeding programme na for only north e dey work.

Poverty in north is very critical