By CHARLES IWUOHA

The Federal Government says it is set to increase the number of benefiting schools under the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) in Enugu State.

Hajiya Sadiya Umar-Farouq, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, stated this after a closed doors courtesy call on Gov. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State on Thursday in Enugu.

The courtesy call was on the sidelines of recent stakeholders meeting; launch of enumeration of beneficiaries and scaling up of the NHGSFP programme in the state.

Umar-Farouq, represented by Mrs Nkechi Onwukwe, Director of Special Needs in the ministry, said that about nine million pupils had been benefitting from the programme in basic (primary) schools across the country.

She said the pupils from primary one to three were receiving one free nutritious meal a day during school term nationwide since 2016.

According to her, NHGSFP is one of the components of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) meant to drive school enrollment, boost nutrition of the pupils, support local production of food, encourage employment and income generation.

“This time around President Muhammadu Buhari has graciously approved additional inclusion of five million pupils to be integrated into the ongoing NHGSFP programme. This means there is an upgrade.

“For the up-grade to happen, we need to carry out enumeration in all states that are participating in the programme to know how many children are being fed; how many cooks have been employed.

“Are there challenges, gaps and issues that need to be resolved?

“So that will help us to see the progress so far made in the school feeding programme being sponsored by the Federal Government,” she said.

The minister said that the ministry wanted to get the actual enumeration of pupils, cooks and challenges, gaps and issues that needed to be resolved before the upgrade of the number of pupils/schools take place in the state.

She revealed that 799 primary schools in the state enrolled in the programme with different variations of the number of pupils from primary one to three in each school; adding: “I cannot give you the number of pupils in each school”.

“However, we learnt that the total basic school we have (in the state) is 1,200; of which after the enumeration, we might get to get them upgraded.

“So, after the enumeration we will see how the remaining about 400 schools might be added so that each school in the state might be enrolled into the programme,” she explained.

On the closed door meeting with the state government, the minister said that the state government welcomed the idea of the enumeration and possible upgrade in the programme.

She said: “We had fruitful discussion and the state government wanted and appealed that the remaining about 400 schools not yet in the programme to be included.

“The Federal Government through the ministry and state government have continued to enjoy a robust and cordial relationship in every other component of the social intervention of the ministry’s NSIP programmes.”