×

Six Nigerian States Get 375m Naira For 10 Days Feeding Of School Pupils

The Nigerian government says it has released over 375 million Naira this year to feed almost 700,000 primary school pupils in five states, in the … Continue reading Six Nigerian States Get 375m Naira For 10 Days Feeding Of School Pupils


UBE, Bayelsa State
File photo
School pupils feeding initiative
The government says 5.5 million pupils will benefit from the school pupils feeding initiative nationwide

The Nigerian government says it has released over 375 million Naira this year to feed almost 700,000 primary school pupils in five states, in the implementation of its Social Investment Programmes.

A statement by the Presidency said virtually all States of the federation, except two, are now being processed for the payment of 30,000 Naira monthly Stipends to 200,000 graduates, the N-Power Beneficiaries.

Giving a media update in Abuja on Sunday, the spokesman for the Vice President, Mr Laolu Akande, said the current administration’s Social Investment Programmes, (SIP), were proceeding at different stages of implementation.

According to him, regarding the Homegrown School Feeding Programme, the Federal Government last week released money for this year, to Anambra, Ogun, Oyo, Osun and Ebonyi sates to cover the feeding for 10 school days.

“The sum of about 375.434 million Naira has just been released and paid to 7,909 cooks in those States for the feeding of a total of 677,476 primary school pupils,” Mr Akande said, giving the breakdown.

Breakdown Of Distributed Funds

According to the breakdown, Ogun State got a total of 119.648 million Naira paid to 1,381 cooks to feed 170,927 pupils, Ebonyi State 115.218 million Naira paid to 1,466 cooks to feed 164,598 pupils while Anambra State got 67.5 million Naira paid to 937 cooks to feed 96,489 pupils.

Oyo State got 72.2 million Naira paid to 1,437 cooks to feed 103,269 pupils and Osun State got 867,370 Naira paid to 2,688 to feed 142,193 pupils.

He said all monies were paid directly to the cooks and cover 10 days of school.

Mr Akande further disclosed that those figures would go up later this week when Zamfara and Enugu States expected to be paid 188.7 million Naira and 67.2 million Naira respectively are added to the benefitting states.

In Zamfara, the sum would be paid to 2,738 cooks to feed 269,665 pupils and in Enugu, the sum would be paid to 1,128 cooks to feed 96,064 pupils.

By then, he noted, over 631 million Naira would have been released so far in 2017 for school feeding in seven States, paid to 11,775 cooks and meant to feed over One million primary school pupils-exact number of pupils by then would be 1,043,205.

On N-Power, Mr Akande stated that the process of payments of verified graduate  beneficiaries had advanced and at different stages of progress in all but two states, noting that more and more of such beneficiaries are posting their glad experiences of receiving alerts on the Social Media.

This means, according to him, that payment of the December Stipends which had gone across the country would be completed in all states except two that did not meet the extended deadline for the verification process for December stipends.

He further told reporters that the processing of January Stipends were also in advanced stages.

The Vice President’s spokesman also assured some beneficiaries who have issues to remain patient, while observing that quite a number of the beneficiaries had banking information irregularities. He said the payment of the unemployed graduates, which had created a huge buzz across the country especially on the Social Media, is being done in batches.

Regarding the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) payments of 5,000 Naira per month, he told reporters that it would continue in the nine pilot states of Bauchi, Borno, Niger, Kogi, Cross Rivers, Osun, Oyo Ekiti, and Kwara States.

“While payment challenges are being experienced with the banks in some of the States, beneficiaries continue to receive their stipends which is being paid for two months.

“A total sum of 10,000 Naira is being paid for the CCT beneficiaries to cover the months of December and January. The CCT payments would be done six times in a year, with a payment of 10,000 to cover two months,” Mr Akande added.