The Federal Government on Thursday said that out of the $322 million recovered from late Head of State, Sani Abacha, $22.216 million had so far been spent on it social empowerment schemes.
The Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment Programmes, SIPs, Mrs. Maryam Uwais, disclosed this in Abuja while briefing State House correspondents shortly after giving account of the National Social Investment Programme, NSIP, of the present administration.
She said the SIPs were initiated by the government as part of efforts to lift millions of Nigerian out of poverty.
According to her, N470.8 billion was released between 2016 and 2018 for the implementation of the Social Empowerment Programmes.
She said her office received N79.98 billion in 2016, N140 billion in 2017 and N250.4 billion in 2018 for the programmes explaining that the four focus programmes of the government’s empowerment efforts were the N-Power, Conditional Cash Transfers, CCT, National Home-Grown School Feeding and Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programmes, GEEP.
She said: “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.
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“Also, under the GEEP, we have the FarmerMoni, MarketMoni and TraderMoni.
“For the first two, funds between N10, 000 and 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 each and upon repayment within six months, the beneficiary becomes eligible for a higher amount, at which point they must open bank accounts.”
Mrs. Uwais noted that as at the end of March, the NSIPs had made direct impacts on 12,069,153 beneficiaries and over 30 million secondary beneficiaries.
The Head of the CCT programme, Henry Ayede, disclosed that 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 to ensure the delivery of the funds to the right beneficiaries.
