The National Social Investment Programme, a social welfare initiative created by the Federal Government, has drawn a lot of criticisms from some stakeholders and the general public.
The critics of the initiative which includes the N-Power Programme, the Conditional Cash Transfer programme, the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme, and the Home Grown School Feeding Programme, complained about lack of structure, political consideration during disbursement, data management, and transparency in the management of the programme as some of the major pitfalls of the initiative.
However, reports from a monitored tweet post by BudgiT through its tracking medium, Tracka, suggests that the conditional cash transfer of N20,000 is going on smoothly with a measure of reliability.
The report says that 7,200 beneficiaries from 12 wards at Ikeduru Local Government Area (LGA) received the sum of N20,000 as part of Federal Government’s palliative to the poorest of the poor, to help reduce the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
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The cash payment is subject to having your name in the social programme register and the presentation of an ID card.
The statement says, “Today, our team tracked the FG conditional cash transfer in Ikeduru LGA, Imo State. We observed that 7,200 beneficiaries were selected from 12 wards across the LGA, they all received N20,000. They presented their ID card to the coordinator using the register for the screening.”
Just 3 days ago, the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, faulted the implementation of the social investment programme, while calling for its review and also the legislation of an enabling law to back it up.
This criticism was made during their meeting with the Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouq at the National Assembly, where she admitted to being handed a programme with lots of intrigues.
However, in her response and defense of the operations of the programme, the Presidential Adviser on social investment, Maryam Uwais, said that the beneficiaries of the programme are from a National Social Register and the process of objective identification of the poor and vulnerable is as provided in the financing agreement between Nigeria and the World Bank.
She accused some members of the National Assembly of playing politics with the initiative because they could not get their selected candidates as beneficiaries of the programme.
Am 4u and u 4me
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God bless Federal Government
Iam C