No less than 25 million meals have been served under the National
Homegrown School Feeding Programme, (SIP), of the Buhari administration,
even as the Presidency is now implementing a huge ramp up of the Social
Investment Programmes as directed by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN.
At the end of last month, the Buhari administration has spent a total
N41,714,793,293 across all the 36 States and FCT implementing different
aspects of the four Social Investment Programmes.
But a far more significant and urgent ramp-up of the Social Investment
spending is now on the way as directed by Prof. Osinbajo.
A breakdown of the total number of meals served show 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.
Indeed possibly, 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.
Besides, Kaduna State has now been repaid N3.4B for its past expenses
implementing the food programme ahead of FG’s roll-out.
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.
Beside, N-Power, actual released funding for the other 3 programmes, apart
from other expenses, so far, are as follows:
* Home Grown School Feeding (HGSFP) – N7.092 billion
* Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) – N800 million
* Government Enterprises Entrepreneurship Programme (GEEP) – N7.301
billion
The Acting President who had received the SIP Update Report recently noted
the progress made under each of the programmes, but gave express and
urgent directives that the programmes be promptly expanded in coverage so
that more Nigerians can start to benefit.
A comprehensive SIP implementation analysis 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.
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.