Federal Government has denied report on the N1 trillion allegedly siphoned by public and political office holders supervising the implementation of the National Social Investment Programmmes (NSIPs) under the present administration.
According to the NSIP National Coordinator, Dr. Umar Bindir, no fewer than 597,613 indigenes of Bauchi State have so far benefitted in various NSIPs including National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), among others since inception.
Dr. Bindir stated this while reacting to the report credited to Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State who alleged that “over N1 trilion federal government’s Social Investment Programme (SIP) has been siphoned by public and political office holders under president Muhammadu Buhari’s nose.”
Dr. Bindir who dismissed the allegation frowned at Governor Mohammed’s submission that ‘corruption has already crashed the Federal Government’s SIP programme to its knees, challenged the FG to adopt the system of empowerment his administration is doing in Bauchi State.”
He said: “The Ministry wishes to categorically affirm that the above unsubstantiated statements credited to the Bauchi State Governor are manifestly false, and have absolutely no bearing to the realities on ground.
“The Federal Government’s National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) launched by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2016 and currently being supervised by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development is very much alive functional, dynamic and increasingly expanding to reach and continue to make a significant positive difference in the lives of even more poor and vulnerable households and beneficiaries nationwide, including Bauchi State.
“To claim otherwise will not be in tune with the realities on the implementation of the NSIP in his state, in particular, as regularly being reported in both the traditional and new media outlets.
By way of emphasis, the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP), though a Federal Government funded intervention, is strictly being implemented by state government appointed officials and indigenes, who are working tirelessly alongside the NSIP team at the national level to deliver the inherent benefits of the various programmes to the poor and vulnerable persons in their respective states, in line with the good intentions of Mr. President to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty by the year 2030.
“The head of the State NSIP implementation team is a Focal Person directly appointed by His Excellency, the Governor.
“The entire beneficiaries and participants across all programmes (clusters) are bona fide indigenes of the state, just as payments to participants and beneficiaries are also made directly into their individual accounts.
“For instance, on the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), all payments made to cooks, who are all employed and appointed by the state government, are effected through their individual accounts. Similarly, the food materials aggregators are directly engaged and introduced to the Ministry by His Excellency, the Governor, and are also directly paid through their respective company accounts.
“In Bauchi State, there are 3,357 Primary schools with 444,099 pupils, 7,538 cooks, and 12 Food aggregators on the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme.
“Payments for N-Power beneficiaries, all indigenes of the State, are also made directly into their respective accounts. These N-Power volunteers are attached to schools, healthcare centres and ADPs across the state.
“Under Batch A, there were 4,837 graduate beneficiaries, Batch B had 8,041 graduate beneficiaries, 1,667 N-Build non-graduate beneficiaries, and 339 N-Knowledge beneficiaries.
“Currently, under the Batch C1, there are 14,535 graduate beneficiaries, 629 N-Knowledge beneficiaries, 301 Mobile Money Agents and 175 Phone Repairs Technicians participating in Bauchi State.
“Under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), all beneficiaries receive the proceeds of their interest-free and collateral-free soft loans directly into their respective accounts. In Bauchi State, the GEEP 2.0 has already registered a total of 37,907 from all the 20 LGAs to participate under the MarketMoni, TraderMoni and FarmerMoni products.
“On the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) cluster, the poor and vulnerable households are all identified and enrolled into the National Social Register (NSR) through an independent Community Based Targeting (CBT) strategy in each state. The NSR was generated from individual state social registers, which are domiciled at the State Ministry of Planning, including that of Bauchi State.
“From this NSR, the Conditional Cash Transfer beneficiaries are selected and enrolled into a National Beneficiary Register (NBR), which is used to make payments of N5,000 monthly grants over a 2-year period. In Bauchi State, there are 75,110 poor and vulnerable households in the NSR, made up of 401,395 individuals, from which a total of 99,957 from all the 20 LGAs are in the National Beneficiary Register (NBR) and are currently receiving monthly payments up to date.
“Grant for Rural Women is a special project approved by Mr President aimed to empower rural poor and vulnerable women through an advance of a one off grant of N20,000 to Rural Women with emphasis on engendering financial inclusion and, most specifically, developing and enhancing rural informal enterprises. In Bauchi State, a total of 8,671 women, all indigenes of Bauchi State benefitted.
“Engagement of community-based Independent Monitors (IMs), who are all indigenes of the State, are deliberately deployed to ensure effective implementation of the NSIP as designed. In Bauchi State, a total of 268 IMs from all the 20 LGAs have been engaged, deployed and are regularly being paid the monthly N30,000 stipend directly into their personal accounts.
“The Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) centers with requisite IT tools and equipment were established in selected public science and technical secondary schools to strategically engender and promote the study of science, engineering and technology, along with building the IT skills of students.
“In Bauchi State, 13 such adequately equipped STEM centres are currently functional, with three fully trained STEM teachers in each of the schools.
“The Alternate School Programme (ASP) that targets to reach one million Out of School Children (OOSC) nationwide in 2022, as approved by Mr. President, is currently being implemented. Bauchi State is fully captured, like all other States nationwide.
“The above verifiable statistics serve as ample and credible evidence that the NSIP is fully operational and functional across Nigeria, including Bauchi State.”
“It is pertinent to stress at this point that poverty knows no political affiliation. The Ministry, therefore, wishes to congratulate His Excellency, the Bauchi State Governor, on the recent launch of the Kaura Economic Empowerment Programme (KEEP) and also welcome him on board to join it in the onerous fight against poverty in Nigeria, and in Bauchi State in particular,” the NSIP Coordinator said.
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