EXCLUSIVE: Read What Presidency Says On N-Power Payment, Other SIP

Disclosed by Mrs Maryam Uwais who is the Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Social Investment, that N470.8 billion was released from 2016 to 2018 for the delivery of the federal government’s social investment programmes across the country.

N-Power, Conditional Cash Transfers, National Home-Grown School Feeding and Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programmes (GEEP) are the four-broad programmes.

S.A to the President said this on Thursday in Abuja at a press conference on the progress of the social investment programmes initiated by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

According to Uwais, from 2016 till date, the Federal Government budgets an annual sum of N500 billion for social investment, in 2016 only N79.98 billion was released while in 2017 and 2018 the sum of N140 billion and N250.4 billion were released for the programmes.

She also revealed that out of the 322 million dollars Abacha recovered loot which was to be used for the social investment programmes, only 22 million dollars had been utilised by her office officially.

She added that at the end of March, 2019, the National Social Investment Programmes had made direct impacts on 12,069,153 beneficiaries, and over 30 million secondary beneficiaries, comprising the cooks, farmers, families, employees and community members.

The Presidential Adviser explained, “Under N-Power, we have 526,000 youth spread across 774 LGAs teaching in public schools, acting as health workers in primary health centres and as agric extension advisors to small holder farmers in our communities.

“Nigeria is fast on its way to becoming the leader in Africa in the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme, by feeding over 9.7 Million pupils and still counting.

“Today, we have 103,992 cooks on our payroll, feeding 9,714,342 pupils in 53,715 government primary schools around 31 States. These children are able to eat a balanced diet, towards improving their learning outcomes.

“For the first two, funds between 10,000 to N350,000 are paid into the accounts of the successful applicants who belong to a registered cooperative and have a bank account.

“For TraderMoni, petty traders are given a loan of N10,000 and upon repayment within six months, the beneficiary becomes eligible for a larger amount, at which point they must open an bank account,’’ she said.

Similarity, the Head of the Cash Transfer Programme, Mr Henry Ayede said, using the National Social Register data on poor and vulnerable households in the country, the government currently pays N5,000 monthly to 872,700 households.

According to him, the beneficiaries were identified by the communities; therefore the government was sure that the money gets to those in true need.

Mrs Bimbo Adesanmi also explained as the Head of the School Feeding Programme, that the government was spending about N70 under the programme to feed a child.