THE federal government has said that it released the sum of N140billion out of the N500billion budgeted for its Social Investment Programme (SIP) in 2017.
Special Adviser to the President on National SIP, Mrs. Maryam Uwais, disclosed the release of the fund for Social Investment Programme at the Media Roundtable on the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme in Abuja on Thursday.
She said for 2016, only N80 billion out of the budgeted N500 billion has been released bringing total sum released to N220 billion out of N1 trillion within the period for the implementation of the four major components of Social Investment Programme.
The components include; N-Power, National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), National Cash Transfer Project (NCTP), and Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP).
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She noted that School Feeding Programme has taken the sum of.N13 billion monthly to implement the feeding approximately 8.6 million pupils (8.596,340) in 46,247 public primary schools in all 24 states currently on the programme.
Uwais also informed that the federal government has committed N49 billion to feeding of pupils in public primary schools across 24 states of the country in the last two years.
The states include Abia, Adamawa, Akwa-Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Niger, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Sokoto, Taraba and Zamfara.
According to her, through the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme, 90,670 Nigerians have been engaged and empowered as cooks while over 100,000 local farmers have also been linked to the programme to supply locally sourced farm produced.
She added: “We have created a value chain with significant economic benefits to the microeconomic development of the states. The value chain offers additional benefits of job creation and increased livelihood outcomes for both cooks and small holder-farmers, hence improving livelihood and the local economies.”
Uwais regretted that government was having challenges with the implementation of the school feeding programme in Niger and Benue states.
According to her, some officials in the Social Investment Programme in Benue and Niger states have been handed over to the Economic And Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for the investigation and prosecution.
She further said: “The National Social Investment Office is ably empowered to suspend the programme in any state where the prescribed standard is reported to have fallen below expectation until a redesigned and realignment is achieved.”
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