Laolu Akande: 25m meals have been served under school feeding scheme

Laolu Akande, spokesman of Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, says 25 million meals have been served under the national homegrown school feeding programme of the current administration.

In a statement on Tuesday, Akande said pupils were being fed across Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, and Zamfara.

Akande said 8,587 schools are involved in the programme and that at least 11,847 cooks had been employed.

He added that Delta and Abia states were now ready to be part of feeding scheme.

“Specifically, Delta State is expected to receive soon, a sum of N63, 366, 100 to start the feeding of 90, 523 primary school pupils. In the same vein, Abia State is also expected to receive N42, 921, 200,” the statement read.

“Besides, Kaduna state has now been repaid N3.4B for its past expenses implementing the food programme ahead of FG’s roll-out.”

Akande said  26,942 people had been paid N5,000 under conditional cash transfer (CCT) scheme, and that about 400 people were expected to join beneficiaries of the stipend “in a few months”.

“The presidency is now “implementing a huge ramp up of the social investment programmes as directed by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo,” he said.

“At the end of last month, the Buhari administration had spent a total N41,714,793,293 across all the 36 states and FCT implementing different aspects of the four social investment programmes.

“But a far more significant and urgent ramp-up of the Social Investment spending is now on the way as directed by Prof. Osinbajo.”

He also explained that the Government Enterprise Empowerment Programme (GEEP) designed for the empowerment of market women, traders and artisans among others, had recorded progress as 57,234 interest-free loans have so far been disbursed.

“Under the CCT scheme, 26,942 beneficiaries are now being funded as at last month with the monthly N5,000 stipend in 9 States and 84 Local Government Areas. The States are Borno, Cross River, Niger, Kwara, Ekiti, Kogi, Oyo, Osun and Bauchi,” he said.

“Based on the recent directive of the Acting President, the number is expected to add up to about 400,000 beneficiaries (and in more States) in a couple of months.

“Also the Government Enterprise Empowerment Programme (GEEP) designed for the empowerment of market women, traders, artisans and co. has also recorded good progress with the disbursement of 57,234 interest-free loans, except a one-time low administrative fee.

“GEEP which is designed for well over one million Nigerians has now registered 3,162,451 people who have shown interest and are members of 26, 924 registered cooperative for purposes of the loans. So far, women participation has been remarkable with 56% of loans so far disbursed to women beneficiaries in 28 States and FCT.

“Directives have also been given to scale up the loan disbursement to 150,000 by end of next month.”