The implementation of the Federal Government’s free meal programme for public primary school pupils in the five pilot states of Anambra, Ebonyi, Oyo, Ogun and Osun states has started on a poor note.
The Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, Mr. Laolu Akande, had in a statement last Sunday said the government had released over N375m as part of its Homegrown School Feeding Programme meant to cater for almost 700,000 primary school pupils in the five states for 10 school days.
According to Akande, N119,648,900 was paid to 1,381 cooks to feed 170,927 pupils in Ogun State while 1,466 cooks in Ebonyi got N115,218,600 to feed 164,598 pupils.
He added that 937 cooks in Anambra were paid N67.5m to feed 96,489 pupils; 1,437 cooks in Oyo state got N72.2m to feed 103,269 pupils, while N867,370 was paid to 2,688 cooks in Osun to feed 142,193 pupils.
In Anambra State, pupils had started enjoying the meals but complained about the poor quality of their food, when one of our correspondents visited them.
Some of the cooks however blamed the Federal Government for not releasing enough funds to take care of all the pupils, forcing them to ration the food to the pupils.
At Igwedumma Primary School, Amawbia, in Awka South Local Government Area, the Assistant Headmistress of the school, Mr. Bernadette Okpara, said the pupils were fed a meal each from Monday to Friday.
A pupil who gave his name as Chinasa said, “The food is tasty but it’s small.”
The two caterers in charge of the primary school, who craved anonymity, complained of poor funding.
One of them said, “For this school, we gave the names of 230 pupils that would be fed but they approved the feeding of 185 pupils. But we are still managing to feed all 230, because you can’t deny any of them of it.We have fed them for five days, remaining five more days which will end next week. At the end of the 10 days, we will stop unless they bring more money.”
PUNCH