We Spent $22m Abacha Loot On Social Investment Programme -Presidency

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Friday, May 24th, 2019

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment, Maryam Uwais has disclosed that out of the $322 million Abacha recovered loot which was to be used for social investment programmes, only $22 million had been utilised.

The four-broad programmes are the N-Power, Conditional Cash Transfers, National Home-Grown School Feeding and Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programmes (GEEP) initiated by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

She also disclosed that N470.8 billion was released from 2016 to 2018 for the delivery of its programmes across the country.

Speaking at a Press Conference in Abuja where she highlighted the progress made so far in the execution of the programmes, Uwais explained that from 2016 till date, the federal government budgeted an annual sum of N500 billion for social investment, stressing that in 2006, only N79.98 billion was released.

According to her, N140 billion was released in 2017 and N250:4 billion in 2018. She added that at the end of a March, this year, the programmes had made direct impact on 12,069,153 beneficiaries.

Uwais said the programme also recoded 30 million secondary beneficiaries, comprising cooks, farmers, families and provided employment for many Nigerians.

She said, “under N-Power, we have 526,000 youth spread across 774 local government areas 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”

“Also, under the GEEP, we have the FarmerMoni, MarketMoni and TraderMoni”; she added

Uwais further said, “for the first two, funds between N10,000 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 a bank account”

Also speaking at the conference, Head of the Cash Transfer Programme, 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.

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

Head of the school feeding programme, Bimbo Adesanmi said that government spends about N70 to feed each child, adding that money was saved on providing nutritious meals by sourcing foodstuffs directly from farmers.