A raft of poverty alleviation programmes of the Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) regime has hit a stormy weather, exemplified in the hot exchanges between the National Assembly leadership and the Presidency last week. The Senate President, Ahmed Lawan and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, told the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Sadiya Farouk, that the scheme was bereft of integrity and inclusiveness. During a session, the lawmakers questioned the wisdom of continuing with the school feeding programme when all schools have been shut down nationwide.
Buhari instigated the controversy when he instructed the minister to work with state governments to develop a strategy to sustain the scheme during the ongoing sit-at-home period. The lawmakers were informed that the Federal Government spent N12 billion on the programme and another questionable N100 million monthly as fees to an “unverifiable consultant”. A total of 9,963,762 pupils in 54,952 primary schools are benefitting from the feeding programme in 33 states.
The feeding programme is part of the palliatives the regime initiated in 2016 as part of the programmes to help pull 100 million people out of poverty by 2030. In the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja and a few other states, the poor on the N-Social Register have also been given N20,000 each, which was the total due in four months, N5,000 being the monthly transfer. The authorities say that the largesse will go round. There are also the TraderMoni, MarketMoni and FarmerMoni beneficiaries. The N-Power scheme for graduates and non-graduates, Government Enterprises and Empowerment Programme, overseen by the Bank of Industry, are other forms of empowerment in the relief package.
But Lawan at the session unreservedly berated the poverty alleviation programme. “No one believes in the social register. It is a fraud and not fair. We believe that we need to work together to ensure effectiveness and efficiency (in its execution). We also want to ensure that those who are supposed to benefit, benefit directly,” he thundered. Gbajabiamila added that the system required reform. The minister, the Speaker insisted, should approach the relevant committees in the parliament and the leadership to codify the scheme.
The Presidency, however, vehemently disagreed with the NASS leadership. Maryam Uwais, the Presidential Special Adviser on Social Investment Programme, said “Lawan and Gbajabiamila got it wrong.” She said that the claim that the National Social Investment Programme had taken more than N2 trillion since its inception was false. “Although the total appropriation by the National Assembly from inception for the four NSIPs is N1.7 trillion, the actual funds released for the NSIPs between January 2016 and October 2019 (when the NSIPs were handed over to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development), amounted to N619.1 billion, constituting 36.4 per cent of the total appropriation from the NASS,” she said.
The denigration of the programme, according to her, was “apparently because the beneficiaries are not known personally to the National Assembly members.” She insisted: “The National Cash Transfer Programme derives all the cash transfer beneficiaries from a National Social Register comprising state social registers that are developed and hosted by the ministry of planning of each state. The process for objective identification of poor and vulnerable households is as provided in the Financing Agreement signed between Nigeria and the World Bank, for which purpose the World Bank IDA Credit and the recovered funds from the Abacha family are being utilised.”
There is still a lot wrong with the implementation of the laudable programme. The Presidency should address the issues raised by the legislature without compromising public interest. It is argued that Uwais and her team attended all the public hearings and shared all relevant documents with NASS’ Poverty Alleviation Committees in the process leading to the setting up of the N-SIP. Yet, rigorous oversight is needed to ensure that vast amounts of taxpayers’ money are not stolen or used for political patronage.
Useful, timely reporting is necessary for effective legislative oversight. Even in developed democracies like the United States, federal spending in normal times is subject to politics, and especially electoral politics, says the Brookings Institution. “Congress and presidents manipulate federal spending to advance their own or their shared electoral interests.”
How will the government guard against waste, fraud, and abuse? Who will be charged with evaluating whether – and to what extent – the palliatives achieved their goals? It is the duty of the National Assembly to track the money and provide the transparency and guardrails necessary to ensure that the funds are transparently disbursed. Through the Bank Verification Numbers or the unique numbers generated by the National Social Register, the legislators should accept Uwais’ challenge to verify the identities of those registered. Farouk has also reportedly requested each member of the PAC in the two chambers to nominate two persons in their constituencies to her office as monitors of the scheme. This is wrong, as it appears to be a trade-off.
The risk for politicisation, waste, fraud, abuse, inefficiency, and ineffectiveness is real. Therefore, beyond the administrative instruments, the programme should be subjected to a forensic audit by an independent body. The public also deserves to know where the taxpayer’s money is going. The ministry should provide online data about contracts and relevant economic, financial and grant information on the regime’s palliative programme.
