By MIKE ABANG, Calabar –
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Farouq, on Wednesday said her team was in the Cross River State to bring more Nigerians under the social protection mechanism of the government.
Hagiya Farouq disclosed that the Federal Government of Nigeria took the enumeration of beneficiaries to scale up the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) to the state.
Speaking at a stakeholders meeting with Governor Ben Ayade and other relevant agencies in Calabar, Hagiya Farouq said her ministry has been mandated to has been mandated to reach an additional five million pupils by 2023.
Represented by Mr Sunday Okoh, a Deputy Director in the Ministry Farouq disclosed that NHGSFP is part of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) which is made up of four unique clusters, the Npower, Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP).
“Today we are here in Cross River on the strength of our partnership and mutual recognition of the need to do more on NHGSFP to bring more Nigerians under the umbrella of government’s social protection mechanism”.
“With over 100,000 cooks employed and more than 100,000 small holder farmers participating in this value chain, the NHGSFP is a serious potential for socio-economic development which needs to be scaled up and sustained nationwide,” she said.
In his remarks, Ayade thanked the team from the Federal Government while urging them to be diligent in their duty of enumeration in the state.
Governor Ayade, who was represented by his deputy, Prof. Ivara Esu, further, appealed to the team to ensure that real persons benefitted from the programme and not leave it in the hands of people who just want to make extra cash for themselves.
“This scheme should be seen as a social service, we should look at it that way, so, for those of us who are called to serve in the area of enumeration, do your best to ensure the programme works effectively in Cross River.
“It is important to state that because of this programme, enrollment in our schools have increased, so we must take it seriously as education is the bedrock of any society.
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