From: Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
The Benue State Government is set to commence the Home Grown School Feeding Programme in all public primary schools across the 23 local government areas of the state.
Addressing newsmen in Makurdi, on Tuesday, Senior Special Assistant to Governor Samuel Ortom on Social Investments, Utaan Terhide, disclosed that 272,818 pupils from primary one to three in all state owned public primary schools would benefit from the free meal.
He noted that the target beneficiaries who were drawn from the 2,756 public primary schools in the state would be given a daily meal at N70 per child.
“This figure implies that with a daily feeding of N70 per child per day, that will be a daily transfer of N19,097.260. This transcends to about N3.8 billion per annum.”
Utaan explained further that mapping was successfully carried out to determine the actual number of pupils in primary one to three who are expected to be fed under the program with a view to determining the number of food vendors to be recruited.
While revealing further that 4,150 cooks had already been recruited across the 23 local government areas of the state, Utaan said the recruited cooks who have also been trained on food safety hygiene were issued certificate of participation.
On the job creation and youth empowerment program known as N-Power, Utaan disclosed that the federal government started the implementation with 200,000 youths out of which a total of 9,833 Benue indigenes have been recruited to participate in the first phase placing Benue as fourth nationally.