Godwin Isenyo, Kaduna
The Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has said that it temporarily ended the school feeding programme last year because the Federal Government did not provide its counterpart fund for the project.
El-Rufai also added that the state spent over N10bn on the programme for a period of eight months last year.
The governor said this through the State Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Prof. Jonathan Non, during a briefing in the state capital.
However, the governor noted that the state would continue with the programme in July 2017 since it had received N3.4bn, part of the money owed by the Federal Government.
He said, “Kaduna State started partial school feeding in January but stopped it in August. We spent at least N10bn on the school feeding for the eight months.
“The initial arrangement was that classes 1 to 3 pupils would be fed by the Federal Government while pupils in Primary 4 -6 would be fed by the state government. Since the Federal Government was not ready we felt it would be unwise to feed classes 4-6 pupils and leave those in classes 1-3. So, we fed all pupils in government primary schools for eight months. Now, the Federal Government has paid us N3.4bn, being half of the money they owe us.’’
Meanwhile, the governor said the state government planned to re-open state- owned institutions in Southern Kaduna once the security situation in the area improved. He also said the state planned to convert all government-owned secondary schools to boarding schools.
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