The Federal Government, through the Senior Special Assistant on Media & Publicity to the President, Office of the Vice President, Mr. Laolu Akande has explained how the government spent N375.4 million on feeding primary school kids in the country.
According to him, regarding the Homegrown School Feeding Programme, the Federal Government last week released money for this year, to the States of Anambra, Ogun, Oyo, Osun and Ebonyi to cover the feeding for 10 school days.
The sum of about N375, 434, 870 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.
- The SSA Media in the presidency gave the following breakdown:
- Ogun State got a total of N119, 648, 900 paid to 1.381 cooks to feed 170, 927 pupils.
- Ebonyi State got N115, 218, 600 paid to 1.466 cooks to feed 164, 598 pupils.
- Anambra State got N67.5m paid to 937 cooks to feed 96,489 pupils.
- Oyo State got N72.2m paid to 1437 cooks to feed 103, 269 pupils.
- Osun State got N867,370 paid to 2688 to feed 142, 193 pupils.
All monies are paid directly to the cooks and cover 10 days of school.
Later this week, Akande further disclosed those figures would go up when Zamfara and Enugu States are expected to be paid N188.7 million and N67.2 million respectively.
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 1128 cooks to feed 96, 064 pupils.
By then, he noted that over N631 million would have been released so far in 2017 for school feeding in 7 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.
![TNS Event](https://i.ibb.co/8cBH227/thumbnail-TNS-GOOGLE-RESIZE-300x250.jpg")
This sum of money will take about a half of trillion of naira.if you are not consistent in your social policies,it will die by next year,the reasons are many (1)you cannot be selective in who you feeds (2)national assembly controls the national federal budget,they will kick against this feeding.
An alternative solution is to allow local govt area finances this school feeding for nursery,primary school,secondary schools can be transferred to state level.
To do that you can allow lga operates a deficit with an economic strategy and kick-out communities economic growth,which will generate revenue for those lga in form of indirect taxes and rates.london gets it’s certain revenue from the british treasurer.they get some money from buses fee and underground train,they pays firemen et.c,in new York city, they imposes sales taxes with new York state taxes.THIS BLOODY HALF OF TRILLION NAIRA IF USED VERY WELL ECONOMICALLY WILL SERVE A MULTIPLY PURPOSES,even this feeding in school and govt will some where to put revenue in some other social programme
A laudable approach if properly monitored. Effort should be made to properly engage the services of qualified unit personnels to see to the activities of these so called cooks..If the cooks were properly monitored, it will go along way to enhance the intake of nourishing the pupils. Money directly releasing to the cooks will surely reduce wastes and corruption. The velocity of circulation of funds will further enhance the economy. Other states who are yet to benefit from the project should be encouraged to participate because of the anticipated success of the project.