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By Akanji Alowolodu, Bauchi
A total of 1,113,000 pupils across Primary Schools in Bauchi state are to be captured during the enumeration of the Home Grown School Feeding Program (HGSFP) of the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management.
Also, a total of 200 Corps members serving in the state have been engaged to conduct the enumeration exercise in all of the benefitting schools across the State.
The disclosure was made by the Special Adviser to the Bauchi State Governor on Social Investment, Hajiya Amina Katagum during Stakeholders Engagement on Enumeration of Beneficiaries and Scaling up of the school feeding Programme in Bauchi state held on Thursday at the Unguwar Borno Primary school, Bauchi.
The Special Adviser explained that the enumeration became expedient in order to ascertain the number of beneficiaries of the programme in the state in order to ensure adequate supply of the food items.
Amina Katagum who lamented that the program had suffered a few setbacks in the past due to inadequate statistics which had made it difficult to ascertain the number of beneficiaries in all the schools thereby making supply of food items very difficult.
She further said that some of the contractors and the people engaged to serve the food having not been honest with the program saying that the development has made the program slowed down.
The Special Adviser however expressed confidence that the enumeration exercise will remove all of the bottleneck militating against the success of the program calling on the headmasters of the schools to cooperate with the officials for the success of the program.
In his remarks, Team Lead of the programme in Bauchi state from the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Gidado Garba Abubakar explained that the enumeration program is aimed at ascertaining the actual number of the beneficiaries of the programme in the state.
He assured that the program will continue to be funded by the Ministry as long as the administration remains in power calling on officials designated for the running of the programme to ensure that they did whatever is expected of them for the success of the programme.
The Team Lead further assured that at the end of the enumeration exercise, the actual number of the beneficiaries will be known and statistically entered which in turn will improve on the quality of the food items that will be served the pupils.
Also speaking at the exercise, Project Manager of the National Home Grown School Feeding Program (HGSFP), Mrs Doris Yashi stressed the importance of the enumeration exercise in the state which she opined will make the program more efficient and effective.
Doris Yashi said that every benefitting pupil in the state will be well fed as their number will determine the quantity of food items that will be supplied by the contractors while issues of cutting corners will be eradicated from the system.
The Project Manager then assured that nothing will make the quality of the food to be served to the pupils reduce because according to her, there is a standard that has been set by the Ministry in charge of the programme which will not be compromised.
