THE Presidency said on Tuesday that the Federal Government will soon propose a bill that would address the issues related to poverty alleviation in the country.

The Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment Programme Maryam Uwais, stated this during an oversight visit by the joint National Assembly committee on poverty alleviation.

She told the panel jointly chaired by Senator Lawal Yahaya Gumau and Muhammad Ali Wudil, that the bill would dwell on how to sustain the achievements made so far.

Uwais said the Federal Government was working on the bill in collaboration with relevant stakeholders.

She said, “We feel that we should have a very good team and the same kind of structure with the steering committee. We want to also ask for the state to come up with the same kind of structure. ‎What we need to do is to make it attractive for the states to key into.

“We have come up with a draft bill that we are working on in-house before we come and engage the two chairmen. There are a lot of options that we are looking at, but we want to look at it first at the executive level before coming to you so that we can sustain the achievements,” she said.

She also told the panel that the Federal Government currently have over 700,000 people captured under beneficiaries under their programmes, but that they send money to only about 300,000…

“Right now, we’re in 30 states in the school feeding programme. We’re in about 56,000 schools around the country and we have received assistance from donors such as the World Bank.

Wudil said the joint committee would see the details of the aid received from the World Bank and other donors.

He said, “Your presentation was very wonderful, but we need to have this kind of updates maybe after every three months because we represent our people.

“Information is critical, and this is one of the best programmes in this government. But a lot of us may not be aware of what’s happening in our constituencies as far as this programme is concerned.

“When you talked about having a bill on poverty alleviation commission or whatever, I think you should look at it very well. But it can also come through a private member bill. If it’s an executive bill, there’s no problem.” – Punch

– Apr. 2, 2019 @ 17:35 GMT |