Senate has embarked on legislation to give legal backing to implementation of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) policy of the Federal Government due to controversies and misconceptions surrounding the
The bill passed second reading on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday.
The Bill seeks an Act to provide a legal and institutional framework for the establishment of the NSIP for the assistance and empowerment of the poor and vulnerable in Nigeria.
Senate had frowned at shoddy implementation of the National Social Investment Programme ( NSIP) based on lack of adequate data and records of verifiable beneficiaries .
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs , Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq who appeared before the Senate Ad – hoc committee on uneven disbursement of N500billion Development fund by the Development Bank of Nigeria ( DBN) , failed to provided required data or verifiable evidence of beneficiaries of the programmes.
During the interface, she said about 9.8million pupils nationwide are already benefiting from the School feeding programme on the rate of N100 per meal , aside beneficiaries of other clusters of the programme .
But the Chairman of the Committee , Senator Sani Musa and other members like Ayo Akinyekure , Uche Ekwunife , Mathew Urhoghide etc , told the Minister that her presentation and that of the Coordinator of the NSIP programme, Dr Umar Bindir , were beautiful on paper but lacked substance .
Consequently, the Committee directed her to furnish it with names of beneficiaries of different clusters of the programmes , their contact address , telephone numbers on the basis of states , local government and wards within the week .
In the same vein, while considering the Bill at plenary on Tuesday, majority of the senators across party lines though lauded the programme and its intention but questioned the implementation process.
They supported the bill seeking establishment of the Agency for NSIP.
Leading the debate, sponsor of the Bill, Senate Leader, Ibrahim Gobir (Sokoto East) said “the NSIP was created in 2016 by Mr. President C-IN -C to address socio-economic inequalities and alleviate poverty among Nigerians through four social support programmes meant to empower the poorest and most vulnerable Nigerians to attain an acceptable standard of living.
“The NSIP is directly and indirectly impacting the lives of poor Nigerians through its four cluster programmes namely: the N-POWER Programme, the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), and the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme (CCT).
He said through the N-Power Programme over 1,400 graduate and 100,000 non-graduate jobs were generated while more than 25,000 indirect jobs were also generated from operations, management and logistics throughout the programme cycle while
over 37 million Nigerians at the bottom of the economic pyramid, who are involved in informal commercial activity have benefitted from the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) , a soft loan intervention which aims at addressing the challenges of access to credit and financial inclusion.
“Under GEEP, the Federal Government provides interest and collateral-free loans which are easily accessible through its three projects, Market Moni, Trader Moni and Farmer Moni, which are structured to suit the peculiarities of the different target groups.
“The GEEP has so far provided incremental loane of between N10, 000 and N00, 000 to about 24 million beneficiaries who are traders, artisans, enterprising youth, agricultural workers and other microservice providers,” he said.
Speaking of achievements made since the inception of NSIP in 2016 to date, Gobir said “1 million youth have been empowered through the N-Power Programme and an additional 500,000 are undergoing various training under the Programme as approved by Mr. President;
“1,632,480 households are currently benefitting from the Cash Transfer Programme while 4,234 have been given productive cash grants of 150,000 naira each;
“Public primary schools across the nation have witnessed an unprecedented number of new enrollments as a result of the National Home Grown Feeding Programme which is currently feeding 9.8 million children.
“The Programme is also gradually reducing the number of out-of-school children nationwide;
“Currently, 2,424,283 beneficiaries have accessed the GEEP loans under Trader Moni, Market Moni and Farmer Moni, while a total of 1,142,783 individuals across the country have registered to benefit from GEEP under the three loan products.”
Corroborating Gobir’s appeal, the Deputy Leader, Senator Ajayi Boroffice who seconded the Bill appreciated President Muhammadu Buhari for codifying the NSIP but lamented that it was badly managed .
He said “we have not been able to trace or identify some of the beneficiaries. Do, institutionalizing the programme will help achieving the purpose for which it was established.
“The only way to cure the deficiency of it’s implementation is to institutionalize it”.
Sen. Hassan Hadeija (Jigawa North East) said institutionalizing NSIP will reduce some misconceptions and controversies about the implementation.
He said there is no country without one form of safety net or the other.
“We have mixed up the NSIP with the loan component in which some of the loans are not been repaid.
“Information on the loans and grants are very scanty. There should be clear distinction between the loan component and grant component . There should be transparency to know data of beneficiaries”.
The Vice Chairman, Committee on Social Services, Micheal Nnaji said he can’t give accurate number of beneficiaries but agreed that with an agency, there will be adequate data and interpretation.
He said “streamlining it will give authority to whoever managing it”, adding that loans need to be recovered and revolved.
Other lawmakers like Chris Ekpeyong, Stella Oduah, George Sekibo, Biodun Olujinmi and Yusuf Yusuf, all spoke along same line with passion.
Senate President, Ahmad Lawan in his remarks said as good and important as the NSIP programme is, the nation did not get the implementation right, saying “to get the real beneficiaries is a major issue”.
Lawan said implementation of the programme will be more credible if the private sector and civil society organisations should be involved and be members of the Agency’s management.
The Senate President said there is no government since independence that has not address the issue of poverty.
Talking about the Bill, he said “with this modification,I think we will get it better. We have to work hard to monitor how it will be implemented . We need to be efficient with the implementation”.
The bill was later referred to Senate Committee on Special Duties to report back to the Senate in the next two weeks.
