Featured, Politics
The election has been won and the federal cabinet constituted, it is now too late for several Nigerian experts and professionals, including the youth and women groups, who had been maintaining a deafening silence over the state of affairs in the country, with the hope of making the list, to wake up and offer their advice and services where necessary to salvage the nation
By Goddy Ikeh
THE Federal Executive Council, FEC, as constituted appears like an affront to some Nigerian professionals, the youth and women and a triumph of the politicians. The expectations were high that the nation needed this class of people to drive the economy to the path of growth and save the country from drifting into anarchy.
Perhaps, these groups of Nigerians should be engaged in reminding the government that public policy, open markets, free trade, human rights and good governance matter above all else and that the role of the federal government should be confined principally to guaranteeing the separation of powers, competition, law and order, defence as well security of lives and property of Nigerians and foreigners alike.
In the light of these demands on the government, there is an urgent need to review the progress made so far in some of the programmes of the federal government after the first four years. One programme that has attracted the attention of the public is the National Social Investment Programme, SIP, of the federal government.
According to the federal government, the National Social Investments Programmes, NSIP, established in 2016, will tackle poverty and hunger across the country. And the suite of programmes under the NSIP focuses on ensuring a more equitable distribution of resources to vulnerable populations, including children, youth and women.
The federal government believes that since 2016, these programmes have supported more than 4 million beneficiaries country-wide through a fair and transparent process supported by the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, MBNP, and other notable Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, with aligned goals.
The programmes include the N-power programme, which is designed to assist young Nigerians between the ages of 18 to 35 to acquire and develop life-long skills for becoming change makers in their communities and players in the domestic and global markets and given a stipend of N30,000 monthly.
The second is the Conditional Cash Transfer, CCT, programme, which directly supports those within the lowest poverty bracket by improving nutrition, increasing household consumption and supporting the development of human capital through cash benefits to various categories of the poor and vulnerable. The support is conditioned on fulfilling soft and hard co-responsibilities that enable the recipients improve their standard of living.
The third is Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme, GEEP, which is a micro-lending intervention that targets traders, artisans, enterprising youth, farmers and women in particular, by providing loans between N10,000 and N100,000 at no monthly cost to the beneficiaries.
And the fourth is the Home Grown School Feeding Programme, HGSF, which aims to deliver school feeding to young children with a specific focus on increasing school enrollment, reducing the incidence of malnutrition, especially among the poor and those ordinarily unable to eat a meal-a-day, empowering community women as cooks and by supporting small farmers that help stimulate economic growth.
As laudable as these programmes may appear to be, the challenge inherent is the timing and the capacity to execute them. Following the conflicting figures associated with the execution of the programmes and the timing of the execution, some Nigerians, especially the oppostion are inclined to describe the scheme as political gimmicks aimed at vote buying for the ruling All Progressive Party, APC.
For instance, some officials of the government have announced that the federal government had spent about N300 billion on the National Social Investment Programmes in the last three years.
The Special Adviser to the President on National Social Welfare Programme, Maryam Uwais, told federal lawmakers on oversight visit to her office recently in Abuja that “so far we have over 11.5 million direct beneficiaries on all our programmes. We also have about nine million indirect beneficiaries.
“Right now we have over 700,000 people on the National Social Register but the people we are paying under the Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme are about 300,000.
“This is because we select only the poorest of the poor in every community and every payment is done through their bank account, so we are able to track every kobo spent.’’
On the school feeding programme, Uwais said the programme was currently feeding over 9.5 million pupils in 30 states and has empowered 101,000 cooks.
“We are feeding over 9.5 million children in about 56,000 schools around the country. The value chain in the school feeding programme is just amazing.
“Not only are the children coming back to school, we are seeing that they are more alert in class and absolutely happy to come to school,” she said.
But her latest figures show that the number of states covered by School Feeding programme has increased to 32 and the population went up to 10 million.
Briefing the new Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba, on the activities of the programmes, on Friday, Aug. 30, in Abuja, Uwais said that the programmes had made huge impact on the socio-economic well-being of millions of poor and vulnerable citizens.
According to her, about 400,000 poor and vulnerable households in 25 states, including those in Borno State’s Internally Displaced Persons camps were enrolled into the National Cash Transfer Programme.
Uwais disclosed that more than 540,000 young people in all the 774 local government areas of the country are engaged in the N-Power Programme, which has one innovation hub in every geopolitical zone in the country to engage young people who have brilliant ideas.
She noted that the presidential target of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years is achievable if the required funds to drive and sustain these programmes are made available to the agency.
Reacting to the claims made by the officials managing the programmes, the First Lady, Aisha Buhari, said that the federal government’s N500 billion social investment programmes in northern Nigeria was a failure. She also faulted the $16 million spent on the purchase of mosquito nets. Aisha Buhari had on Saturday, May 25, during an interactive programme for women at the State House in Abuja lamented the inability of women in the north to benefit from the programme.
Obviously, the First Lady is not alone in her views about the programmes. The PDP, which had dismissed the programmes as political gimmick, said that its stance that the APC was deceitful with the programmes, had been vindicated by Aisha Buhari’s revelation on the federal government’s N500 billion social investment programmes in the north.
In a statement in May by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP said: “More disheartening is the fact that the said funds were meant for the welfare of the poor, whom Mr. President had always claimed to represent in government.
“Unfortunately, these poor Nigerians have been waiting endlessly for the failed social investments promised by President Buhari only to have their hopes dashed as revelations by Mrs. Buhari had shown that the money provided for the programme had been stolen.
“The PDP holds that now that the truth has been revealed by no lesser Nigerian than Mr. President’s wife, the National Assembly and all anti corruption agencies should immediately commence forensic investigation on how these funds were dispensed and utilized.
“Nigerians can now see how the same administration presided over by ‘Mr. Integrity’ has been using the names of innocent poor Nigerians to loot our national treasury and fritter away billions of naira to finance their wasteful lifestyle while Nigerians wallow in abject poverty.
“It is indeed appalling that the Buhari administration would be sitting on such colossal corruption and continues to thrive in evil concealment while diverting public attention from their rot by hounding innocent opposition figures on trump-up corruption charges.
“The PDP had always maintained that no matter how much deceit and falsehood appear to thrive, the truth must prevail at the end of the day.
“Our party therefore charges President Buhari to speak out on the matter and immediately commence the process of recovering the money and channeling it for the benefit of the poor Nigerians.”
Aside from the criticisms of the PDP and the First Lady, some Nigerians see some of the programmes as unrealistic. They are quick to point out that providing loans between N10,000 and N100,000 at no monthly cost to the beneficiaries in its tradermoni is untenable and hardly useful to the beneficiaries.
Although Uwais says that funding has remained a major setback in the delivery of social benefits by her agency as only about 25 percent of the funds needed had been released this year, but what is more crucial is the transparent execution and sustainability of the projects.
Perhaps, auditing of the programmes and retuning some of the activities may be necessary to make the NSIP more sustainable and useful to the beneficiaries as well as attractive to donor agencies.
Already, the new Minister of State for Budget and National Planning has canvassed the need for data integration for proper planning and execution of the NSIP, which has been central to the criticisms and poor public perception of the programmes.
– Aug. 31, 2019 @ 17:45 GMT |
Tags: Social Investment Programmes and triumph of politics
