TheCable

The federal government says it has spent at least N300 billion on the National Social Investment Programme in the last three years.

Maryam Uwais, special adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on national social welfare programme, made the disclosure in Abuja on Tuesday.

She spoke during a joint oversight visit by members of the senate and house committee on poverty alleviation.

The delegation was led by Lawal Gumau and Mohammed Wudil, chairmen of the committees in the two chambers.

Uwais said since inception in 2016, the social investment programmes has been focused on improving the living conditions of Nigerians through capacity building, investment and direct support.

“So far we have over 11.5 million direct beneficiaries on all our programmes. We also have about nine million indirect beneficiaries,” she said.

“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.”

Commenting on the national school feeding programme, Uwais said over 9.5 million pupils in 30 states were being fed while 101,000 cooks were empowered.

“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,” she said.

“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.”

Uwais said that through the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), the Buhari administration had been providing financial support to businesses at the bottom of the financial pyramid.

She mentioned Tradermoni, Farmermoni, and Marketmoni as the programmes being executed under GEEP.

“Tradermoni was created specifically for petty traders and artisans across Nigeria,” she said.

“With Tradermoni, you can receive interest-free loan starting from N10,000 and growing all the way to N100,000 as you pay back.

“We are also seeing that farmers are smiling to the banks.”

On the challenges in the delivery of social benefits, Uwais said adequate funding remained a major setback.

She commended the World Bank for the grant given to the office for conditional cash transfers (CCTs), and also ActionAid for its role in monitoring and evaluation of all the social investment programmes.

Also commenting, Wudil said the visit would help the committee makw informed decisions concerning budgetary allocations to the various social investment programmes as proposed in the 2019 budget.