FG commends FCMB donation of school feeding portal

Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has commended the management of First City Monument Bank (FCMB), for showing a strong commitment and support to the development of Nigeria through strategic partnerships with the public and private sectors over the years. The commitment, he emphasised, has gone a long way to strengthen government’s efforts towards enhancing the well-being of the country and the citizenry.

The Acting President gave the commendation on Tuesday, during a visit by the management of the Bank to the Presidential Villa in Abuja, with provided an opportunity for the Bank’s management to formally donate to the Federal Government a robust Home Grown School Feeding (HGSF) programme web portal it developed for deployment nationwide.

The portal acts as an information hub, which aids remote monitoring and evaluation from the Vice President’s Office, thereby giving access to data. These include the number of people employed in the value chain, the menu on state by state basis, the impact of the programme on agricultural production, and ultimately, and the overall health and well-being of the benefitting children.

The Office of the Vice President is in charge of this social investment programme, which was launched in July 2016. It is currently running in several states, and when fully operational in all the 36 states, over 24 million school children will benefit from it thereby making it the largest school feeding programme in Africa.

Commending FCMB for the portal, Osinbajo said: “for being proactive and demonstrating tremendous interest towards the success of the HGSF programme. From what I have seen, this portal is an excellent initiative and the Bank should be commended not just for this, but for being a partner in progress over the years.”

He added that apart from improving child nutrition and healthy living, the free school feeding programme will increase enrolment of children, boost agricultural production and its associated value chain as well as create employment opportunities in all sectors.