FG, Jigawa explains how N9.274 billion was expended on school feeding

Ahmed Abubakar, Dutse

The Social Investments Programme (SIP) declared that it had expended the sum of N9.‎274 billion on the feeding of primary school pupils in over 2000 schools across Jigawa State.

The State focal person, Alhaji Bala Usman Chamo, disclosed to reporters that the home grown school feeding programme was responsible for the feeding of 918,094 pupils as at 25 February 2020.

Bala Usman‎ said the programme was catered by both the Federal and State Governments explaining that the Federal Government was responsible for the feeding of 441,057 pupils while the state fed 434,995 pupils, respectively.

Mr Chamo explained further that the feeding programme has resulted in the increase in school enrolment in all levels of classes.

He said the disbursement was for 277 feeding days in 17 trenches of payments to over 8,000 cooks.

This came on the heels of controversy being generated when the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar, said the ministry had expended ‎N500 million during the COVID-19 lock down.

The Minister had earlier explained at a COVID-19 task force briefing that it was resolved with stakeholders that FCT, Lagos and Ogun Wtates would be used as pilot cases.

According to the State focal person, each takes home ration was valued at N4,200 and that the figure was arrived at with proper consultation which was generated from statistics provided by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN).

He said from the NBS and CBN, a typical household in the country is assumed to have three children, and based on the original design of the Home Grown School Feeding programme, long before it was domiciled in the ministry, every child on the programme receives a meal a day at a cost N70 per child.

When you take 20 school days per month, it means a child eats food worth N1,400 per month.Three children would then eat food worth N4,200 per month and that was how we arrived at the cost of the ‘take-home ration’.