National Wire About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories
Olabde Adaramola
The Programme Manager, national home grown feeding programme in Niger state, Comrade Umar Ndashaba, has said that the federal government, has so far expended over N7billions on the schools feeding programme across the 25 local government areas of the state in the last three years.
He made the disclosure on Monday during an interactive session with some selected journalists , at the National Social Investment Programme office in Minna, Niger state capital.
He added 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.
Umar Ndashaba, said, “in addition to these, no fewer than 6,368 local cheese makers have been engaged to produce cheese to 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”.
He further hilighted that the aggregators were recruited from the three geo- political zones of the state, stressing that the aggregators usually off take 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 feeding, while the remaining 951 primary schools are yet to be captured in the exercise.
The Programme Manager, noted that no fewer than Six states from the Six geo-political zones of the country had visited Niger state on a learning visit, stressing that this learning visit was facilitated by Action Aid International, in collaboration with Mc Arthur Foundation sometimes late last year.
