The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar-Farouq, has announced that the Federal Government expended about N523.3 million on the School Feeding Programme during the Covid-19 lockdown,
She said this at the Presidential Task Force, PTF, on Covid-19 briefing, on Monday, in Abuja.
She stated that the Programme was modified and implemented in 3 States, following a March 29, Presidential directive.
Her words: “It is critical at this juncture to provide details that will help puncture the tissue of lies being peddled in the public space.
“The provision of ‘Take Home Rations’, under the modified Home Grown School Feeding Programme, was not a sole initiative of the MHADMSD.
“The Ministry, in obeying the Presidential directive, went into consultations with State Governments through the State Governors Forum, following which it was resolved that ‘Take Home Rations’, remained the most viable option for feeding children during the lockdown.
“So, it was a joint resolution of the Ministry and the State Governments to give out Take Home Rations.
“The Stakeholders also resolved that we would start with the FCT, Lagos, and Ogun States, as pilot cases.
“According to statistics from the NBS and CBN, a typical household in Nigeria, has 5.6 to 6 members in its household, with 3 to 4 dependent.
“So, each household is assumed to have 3 children.
“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.
“The meal costs N70 per child.
“When you take 20 school days per month, it means a child eats food worth N1,400 per month.
“3 children would then eat food worth N4,200 per month, and that was how we arrived at the cost of the ‘Take Home Ration’.
“The agreement was that the Federal Government will provide the funding, while the States will implement.
“To ensure transparency in the process, we partnered with the World Food Programme, WFP, as technical partners.
“TrackaNG monitored and gave daily updates validating the programme.
“In the FCT, 29,609 households were impacted, 37,589 households in Lagos and 60,391 in Ogun, making a total of 124,589 households impacted between May 14, and July 6.
“If 124,589 households received Take Home Rations valued at N4,200, the amount will be N523,273,800.’’