From Okwe Obi, Abuja
The Federal Government has said it would resume the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) across the country by February.
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, disclosed this, yesterday, in Abuja at the 4th annual review of the scheme.
“We are commencing the school feeding scheme immediately school resumes. We normally do the payment at the third week of the month. So, before the third week of February we will be able to achieve some of these things. And we will be able to see increment in school enrollment,” she said.
Farouq said additional five million pupils, including children in non-conventional educational settings, would be added to the scheme. She said the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) had been added to NHGSFP, while Kwara State would be included in the coming months.
She said the NHGSFP would soon launch a capacity building exercise for vendors and enumeration of all beneficiaries on the programme.
“Plans have been concluded for the transition of the N-power batch A and B through the creation of the NEXT portal, which would allow those who choose to sign up to access other government empowerment opportunities.A beneficiary management system for the NSIPs is expected to be deployed in 2021 which would have the capacity to manage payments, address grievances and improve dissemination of information,” she said.
NHGSFP programme manager, Kogi State, Abdulkareem Suleiman, identified lack of logistics, communication gap and poor funding as some of the challenges faced by the organisation.
Suleiman appealed to the Federal Government to increase funding and communication channels with state governments in order to achieve the aim of the scheme.