By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
Special Adviser to the President on Social Investments, Mrs Maryam Uwais says a total of six hundred and twenty thousand, nine hundred and forty seven poor and vulnerable Nigerians are currently benefitting from the National Cash Transfer program, a key component of the National Social Investment Programme of the Federal Government.
A statement by NSIO Communications Manager, Justice Bibiye on Saturday said the clarification became necessary following media reports which quoted her as saying that six million, six hundred and twenty thousand Nigerians are being paid the monthly five thousand naira stipends earmarked for the cash transfer beneficiaries.
Speaking when she appeared on the PLATFORM, a News and Current Affairs Program on the network service of the Nigerian Television Authority NTA, Mrs Uwais said although 1,491,296 housholds comprising 6,056,872 individuals have been captured on the National Social Register NSR, 620 947 of them are currently receiving monthly payments and being supported by trained community facilitators.
The Presidential aide also used the opportunity of the media engagement to clarify reports that the Federal Government made a budgetary provision of thirty billion naira (N30B) for 2020, as against the usual 500 billion benchmark for the N-SIP since 2016.
She told the panelists that nothing has changed in the budgeting cycle as relates to the Social Investment Programmes, noting that the SIP budget has always been pegged at four hundred billion naira while another hundred billion naira has been domiciled in the Federal Ministry of Finance as counterpart of the Social Housing Fund.
Mrs Uwais, expressed the hope that shortfalls in budgetary releases in the last three years would be a thing of the past, as urgent progress needs to made in efforts to uplift the living standards of poor Citizens, as often reiterated by President Muhammadu Buhari
“In 2016, we got 16% of our budget, 36% in 2017 and 53% in 2018”, she said.
The Presidential aide, however, noted that despite the shortfalls in releases, the National Social Investment Programme has been very successful with over thirteen million people across the country directly impacted and over 44 milllion as secondary beneficiaries comprising families, agents, farmer and others in the value chain.
On her recent award by Schwab Foundation, a sister organization of the World Economic Forum WEF, Mrs Uwais said she was overwhelmed by the international honour, saying it underscores the efforts of the Buhari Administration to improve the lot of economically disadvantaged citizens through its social protection schemes.
