The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, has warned food vendors against lackadaisical attitude towards sanitation in communities suffering cholera outbreaks.
Farouq specifically warned the food vendors serving under the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) while speaking at the flag-off of the NHGSFP’s enumeration in Dutse on Tuesday.
The minister, who was represented by an Assistant Director in the ministry, Mr Badayi Muktar, gave the warning against the backdrop of the present cholera outbreak in the state.
The disease had spread across 19 out of the 27 local government areas already.
According to Farouq, the team was in Jigawa for the flag- off of the enumeration of the NHGSFP’s beneficiaries across the participating states.
“As we may be aware, the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme is funded by the Federal Government but implementation is by the state governments.
“The responsibility of managing the programme day -to- day is with the state appointed actors, from programme officers to cooks.
“As part of the ministry’s efforts to strengthen and institutionalise the programme, we have embarked on an enumeration exercise.
“This is with a view to verify the existing data of the benefiting pupils in the programme as provided by each benefiting state.
“It is also to update our database with accurate data and ultimately scale up the programme to reach more beneficiaries across the nation.
“We have therefore devised this as a multi -sectoral intervention with partners such as National Orientation Agency, National Bureau for Statistics, National Population Commission, state Social Investments Programme (SIP) officers, and Universal Basic Education,” she said.
The minister called on parents, school headmasters, cooks, community leaders, to support the Federal Government efforts for the benefit of pupils who were eligible for the free meals.
Alhaji Bala Chamo, the state Coordinator, SIP, told newsmen that over 500 pupils were currently benefiting from the free meals proramme in Jigawa.
Chamo said that the state had targeted 640,000 pupils and the data had already been sent to Abuja, adding that the state had been complementing the Federal Government’s efforts in the programme.
“The Federal Government targets Primary 1 to Primary 3 pupils in the programme and Jigawa state government decides to complement the efforts by feeding Primary 4 to Primary 6.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the enumeration of both pupils and food vendors were conducted simultaneously at Fagoji and Shuwarin LIPs primary schools in Dutse and Kiyawa local government areas of the state.
