Hajiya Isa Mele, the Focal Person, Social Investment Projects in Gombe State, says the school feeding programme of the Federal Government has increased school enrolment by 15 per cent in the state.
Mele disclosed this on Wednesday at the sensitisation programme on communicating government policies, programmes and activities, organised by the National Orientation Agency in Gombe State.
The Focal Person, who was represented by Ibrahim Zanna, the Project’s team lead, said that the Federal Government was spending N477.2 million every 20 days to feed 340,916 pupils of 1, 353 schools across the state.
He said: “Currently, 3,343 food vendors are engaged to provide the food for the pupils and the monies are paid directly into their respective accounts.
“Also, currently 11,416 beneficiaries of N-power in the state are being paid N342.4 million monthly and 13,381 beneficiaries of Conditional Cash Transfer are being paid N133.8 million every two months.”
Adaline Patari, the Acting Director, NOA, said that the aim of the sensitisation was to enlighten the public on government policies, programmes and activities.
Patari said that the sensitisation would enable the public to understand how they could benefit from these programmes, while also eliciting feedbacks from them.
She said: “The present administration has initiated a lot of programmes and activities for the benefit of the citizens, but many at the grassroots and urban areas are not aware of them or do not know the procedure to access the benefits.
“This programme also aims at harnessing feedback from the citizens to government with a view to aiding improvement on the successes made so far.”
In his remarks, Egbere Simon, the Controller, Federal Ministry of Housing, said that government had done well with regards to providing affordable houses for the public.
According to Simon, the National Housing Programme has about 76 units of three, two and one-bedroom houses to be sold to members of the public.
He said: “The first phase is located at the Kano bye pass, while the second phase is near the International Conference Centre, along Gombe-Bauchi road.
“All these projects have generated income via employment opportunities and markets for members of the public.”
The controller added that the ministry was also saddled with the responsibility of supervising the Federal Government’s activities as regards the Sustainable Development Goals.
He said that various projects were being executed at the local government’s level for enhancing quality life in the state.
Simon said that some of the ongoing projects included installation of solar streetlights, motorised boreholes, and transformers, construction of drainage and erosion control at the Federal University, Kashere.
He added that the projects also included rehabilitation of hostels of public and community schools.
On his part, Ahmed Salihu, the Controller of Works, said that the ongoing construction of Gombe-Numan Road awarded by the Federal Government had reached 89.34 per cent completion stage.
According to Salihu, the road project will be completed by December, 2019 and the construction of Gombe/Bauchi road culvert is 100 per cent completed.
He added that the ministry had also submitted proposals to Abuja for some of the federal government projects, adding that these were awaiting approval.
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