The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disasters Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, has cautioned food vendors against lackadaisical attitude toward sanitation in communities identified with cholera outbreaks.
Farouq was specifically cautioning the food vendors serving under the National Home Grown Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) at the flag-off of the NHGSFP’s enumeration at Fagoji LIP Primary School in Dutse on Tuesday.
The minister, who was represented by an Assistant Director in the ministry, Mr Badayi Muktar, gave the warning following the backdrop of the ongoing cholera outbreak in the state where the disease had spread across 19 out of the 27 local government areas.
According to her, they are 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 Feeding is funded by the federal government but implementation is by the state government.
“The responsibility of managing the day to day is with the state appointed actors from programmed officers to cooks.
“As party of the ministry’s efforts to strengthen and institutionalise the programme, we have embarked on an enumeration exercise with a view to verify the existing data of the benefiting pupils on the programme as provided by each benefiting state, 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 the state NSIP officers, National Orientation Agency (NOA), National Bureau for Statistics (NBS), National Population Commission (NPC), National Youth Service Scheme (NYSC) and Universal Besic Education (UBE).
The minister, therefore, called on parents, school headmaster, cooks, community leaders to support the federal government efforts for the benefit of the pupils who are eligible for the free meals.
Alhaji Bala Chamo, the state Coordinator, Social Investments Programme (SIP), told newsmen on the sidelines of the event that over 500 pupils were currently benefiting from the free meals in Jigawa.
Chamo said that the state had targeted 640,000 pupils and their data had already been sent to Abuja, adding that though the state had been complementing the federal government’s efforts in the programme.
“The federal government targets primary 1-3 on the programme and Jigawa state government decides to complement the efforts of the federal government by feeding primary 4-6 and that is what we are doing.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the enumeration of both the pupils and food vendors were conducted simultaneously at Fagoji and Shuwarin LIPs primary schools in Dutse and Kiyawa Local Government Areas of the state.
