Acting President Yemi Osinbajo said the federal government has released enough funds to start the delivery of one hot meal a day to more than one million primary school pupils across seven states in the country. The feeding prigranne is under the National Homegrown School Feeding Programme, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has said.
Speaking through his spokesperson, Laolu Akande, Osinbajo said on Monday in a statement that 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.
While funds have been released to the seven states to kick off the programme, not all of them have actually started the implementation as at press time, the statement said.
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.
Equally a total number of 11,775 cooks have now been employed to prepare the meals in those states already, while local farmers in the states are also the one producing the food prepared and served.
Anambra, which was the first state to receive funding late last year has now received three full funding tranches covering 30 school days, totaling 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 State, the government released N67,244, 800 to feed 96, 064 pupils and 1128 cooks engaged.
In Ogun State, it 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 State, a total of N72, 288, 300 has been released by the FG to feed 103, 269 pupils, engaging 1437 cooks, while Zamfara received a total sum of N188, 765, 500 to feed 269, 665 pupils and engaged 2, 738 cooks, the statement said.