Ali Abare, Gombe

Over 286, 000 primary school pupils are to benefit from the Federal Government’s national home-grown school feeding initiative with the launch of the programme in Gombe State.

Focal person, Gombe State Social Investment Project, Hajiya Maryam Isah Mele, disclosed this during the official launch of the programme, which is part of the N500 billion funded social investment programme announced by the Federal Government to tackle poverty and improve the health and education of children in the country.

Mele said that vendors who would supply meals to school children in the state had been sufficiently trained on health, sanitation and hygiene program before implementation of the programme.

In her words, “A total of 197 million naira was paid to 2,809 duly verified vendors to provide services to 286,000 pupils at 70 naira each”.

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“The vendors are to cook meals using a timetable agreed by stakeholders in the programme while ensuring that the budget is pocket friendly. An aggregating system will ensure provision of food products at discounted prices to ensure equality, standard and compliance with unnecessary price increase in the market”.

Also speaking, wife of Gombe State governor, Hajiya Adama Dankwambo, commended the Federal Government for initiating the programme.

She described education as the bedrock of any development, saying “To be able to attain the standard of education required, we must be able to surmount all obstacles militating against education. I believe this historic event is one of such areas where milestone efforts and results will be achieved in our quest for educational development.”