The Presidency in Nigeria has given the reason behind the allocation of 500 billion Naira estimate in the 2016 budget to social investments, saying it was necessitated by the need to pay attention on the common man and spend the resources of the country on the poor people.
In a statement on Sunday, the Senior Special Assistant-Media & Publicity in the Office of the Vice President, Mr Laolu Akande, pointed out that at no time in the nation’s budgetary history had the Federal Government made a specific vote of such volume for social welfare.
“Even economic historians now say that not only is the half a trillion Naira vote unprecedented, but it is also the greatest service ever done to the Nigerian state and people by any federal government administration,” Akande claimed.
He further explained that the six social safety plans would reduce high levels of poverty and vulnerabilities while also increasing Nigeria’s Human Development Index on the global UN rankings.
“The President’s vision is to increase investments in human capital to guarantee security for all, employment and improved well-being of the people,” the Vice President’s media aide added.
He stated that the presidency was aware that past attempts to address poverty had suffered because of insufficient political will, presence of various UN-coordinated initiatives and poorly targeted beneficiaries among other factors, and was working to avoid the pitfalls.
Conditional Cash Transfer
The Senior Special Assistant further explained that for the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), where one million extremely poor Nigeria would receive 5000 Naira monthly in 2016, the money would be paid directly to the beneficiaries through a payment system that was being worked out.
He said World Bank and the Bill Gates Foundation were collaborating with the presidency to develop an efficient payment system.
“All together, about 60 billion Naira has been estimated to be paid out to extremely poor Nigerians. And the implementation of the programme starts once the budget is passed.
“There would also be direct payment in the Homegrown School Feeding Programme.
“In the case of the CCT, those one million poor Nigerians would be paid directly, while in the case of the Homegrown School Feeding, the suppliers of the meals to the primary school pupils will also be paid directly by the Federal Government. There would be no middle agents involved, official or private,” Akande stated.
The media aide observed that the recipients of the CCT would meet the conditions of their children participating in immunisation and school enrolment and also boost the economy, as the money would boost consumer spending in the economy.
Regarding the Homegrown School Feeding programme, Mr Akande said that the Federal Government would start a pilot scheme in selected states once the budget was passed.
‘One-meal-a-day’
The one-meal-a-day programme is also being supported by the Imperial College in the UK through one of its agencies Partnership for Child Development.
According to Mr Akande, the Homegrown School Feeding will feed the children, help their learning significantly and also boost the local economy of the states and the local communities.
The Statement further said that the Buhari administration had four other social investment plans, including the 500,000 direct jobs, where unemployed graduates would be trained and hired to become volunteer teachers in their communities while looking for jobs in their chosen profession.
There is also a Youth Employment plan that would take 370,000 non-graduates youths through skills acquisition and vocational training programmes.
“Like the teaching jobs, the selection of beneficiaries for this scheme would be done on states and FCT basis, opened to all Nigerians of different shades.
“For small scale traders, artisans and market women, there is the Micro Credit scheme where one million Nigerians would get a one-time soft loan of 60,000 Naira each through the Bank of Industry,” the statement read.
A Free Education plan for students of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics, where government will pay tuition for 100,000 students, is also part of the plan.