Respite as Osun Gets N80m School Feeding Grant

Respite has come the way of the government of Osun, as the Federal Government releases N80m to the coffer of the state this week, as part of the grants for Federal Government’s school feeding programme.
The Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande had disclosed in a statement made available to DAILY POST on Monday, stating that five states of Osun, Ogun, Oyo, Ebonyi, and Enugu, would be benefiting states in the second phase of the scheme.

According to him, Anambra state flagged off the feeding programme earlier in 2016, bringing the implementing states of the scheme to six.
Akande disclosed that payment for the Conditional Cash Transfer programme has commenced in all the nine pilot states including Bauchi, Borno, Cross River, Ekiti, Kwara, Kogi, Niger, Osun and Oyo.
Meanwhile, some stakeholders in the educational sector have expressed mixed feelings over the grant.
A retired Principal in one of the Public School in the state, Mr Sunday Anjorin, lauded the federal government’s initiative, as he commended Gov. Rauf Aregbesola for setting the pace for school feeding initiative.

Anjorin added that although, the federal government intervention is commendable, there is still more to be done in order to meet up with the huge financial responsibility Osun government incurred in the course of feeding the pupils at the elementary schools.
He observed that the scheme has enhanced the rate of enrollment in schools, urging the federal government to spread the gesture to all the states of the federation.
However, a member of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Mr Bamidele Idowu has advised the state government to be more transparent and accountable in the finance of the school feeding scheme, saying the figures claimed by O’Meal, the agency in charge of the school feeding system in Osun is “ambiguous.”
Idowu also charged the agency to use the federal government’s grant judiciously for the benefit of the pupils.