Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has ordered immediate expansion of Social Investment Programmes, SIPs of the federal government to accommodate more Nigerians.
Osinbajo gave the directive when he received the SIP update report recently.
He also expressed satisfaction with the level of progress so far made under the programmes.
With the development, over one million Nigerians are to benefit from the programme.
Also, no less than 25 million meals have been served under the National Homegrown School Feeding Programme, (SIP).
These were contained in a statement signed by Mr. Laolu Akande, the spokesman of the Acting President in Abuja in Tuesday.
According to the statement, the administration had as at the end of last month (April 2017) spent a total N41,714,793,293 across all the 36 States and Federal Capital Territory, FCT, implementing different aspects of the four Social Investment Programmes.
A breakdown of the total number of meals served showed that “1,051, 619 million primary school pupils are now being fed across the seven states of Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, and Zamfara state. No less than 11,847 cooks have also been employed. Altogether 8,587 schools are involved in those States.”
The statement added that “later in the week, more meals will be served as Delta and Abia States are now ready to be paid under the federal government school feeding scheme.
“Specifically, Delta State is expected to receive soon, a sum of N63, 366, 100 to start the feeding of 90, 523 primary school pupils. In the same vein, Abia State is also expected to receive N42, 921, 200.”
Also, Kaduna State “has now been repaid N3.4b for its past expenses implementing the food programme ahead of FG’s roll-out.”
The statement also stated that “In a breakdown of the over N41b so far spent on the SIPs, N-Power, which is the job programme for unemployed graduates has received N26.418 billion, being the single largest spending item out of the four social investment programmes under the 2016 Appropriation.”
It further stated that beside N-Power, actual released funding for the other 3 programmes, apart from other expenses, so far, were “Home Grown School Feeding (HGSFP) – N7.092 billion; Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT)- N800 million; Government Enterprises Entrepreneurship Programme (GEEP) – N7.301 billion”
Meanwhile, a comprehensive SIP implementation analysis, according to the statement “shows that every local government area, every State and the FCT have beneficiaries in one of the four programmes, while some states are already benefiting in more than one.
“For instance, under the N-Power job scheme for unemployed graduates now running in 36 States and FCT, 162,024 unemployed graduates have been effectively enrolled and validated-meaning have been cleared to be receiving the N30,000 monthly stipends, out of the 200,000 originally engaged late last year.
“A vast majority of the validated beneficiaries have been receiving stipends as at 31st March, 2017. Indeed an additional number has just been added to the list of those receiving their pay in the last several weeks.”
Similarly, the federal government said that it was working to ensure that more Nigerians would benefit from N-Power, Transfer (CCT) scheme and the Government Enterprise Empowerment Programme (GEEP).
A date for the commencement of the registration for N-Power would be announced soon.
“However, effort is being made to validate others and ensure that the 200,000 places provided for in the first batch of the N-Power programme are all effectively validated as provided for under the first phase of the programme.
“A date for the engagement of more N-power beneficiaries and the reopening of the portal to receive more applications would be announced soon.
“Under the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) scheme, 26,942 beneficiaries are now being funded as at last month with the monthly N5,000 stipend in 9 States and 84 Local Government Areas. The States are Borno, Cross River, Niger, Kwara, Ekiti, Kogi, Oyo, Osun and Bauchi.
“Based on the recent directive of the Acting President, the number is expected to add up to about 400,000 beneficiaries (and in more States) in a couple of months.
“Also the Government Enterprise Empowerment Programme (GEEP) designed for the empowerment of market women, traders, artisans and co. has also recorded good progress with the disbursement of 57,234 interest free loans, except a one-time low administrative fee.
“GEEP which is designed for well over one million Nigerians has now registered 3,162,451 people who have showed interest and are members of 26, 924 registered cooperatives for purposes of the loans.
“So far, women participation has been remarkable with 56% of loans so far disbursed to women beneficiaries in 28 States and FCT.
“Directives have also been given to scale up the loan disbursement to 150,000 by end of next month”, the statement added.
