The House of Representatives took the Federal Government to task on Tuesday over the N500bn earmarked in the 2016 budget for job creation and provision of other social services to vulnerable people.
The House Committee on Legislative Budget/Research and the Committee on Poverty Alleviation queried the non-utilisation of the “huge budget” at a meeting with the Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Social Investment, Mrs. Maryam Uwais, in Abuja.
The lawmakers said they were concerned especially that the year would wind down in about four months.
Buhari had signed the country’s budget of N6.06trillion, which incorporated the N500bn, into law last May.
However, lawmakers said they had observed that the N500bn remained “idle” amid increasing socio-economic pressures on the would-be beneficiaries.
The Chairman, Committee on Legislative Budget/Research, Mr. Golu Timothy, for example, told Uwais that it would appear that her office was overwhelmed by the size of the N500bn and was facing challenges rolling out plans for the implementation.
Timothy said, “Importantly, we must note that a budget of N500bn coordinated basically through one office is huge.
“Transparency is key and we at the House of Representatives want to ensure that the office is competent enough to coordinate such a huge amount of funds without being overwhelmed by the job.
“We, however, believe that our synergy will assist you also to implement these programmes efficiently and effectively and thereby give comfort to Nigerians that this is not another white elephant project like PAP, MAMSER, NAPEP, Peoples Bank, etc.”
Out of the N500bn, lawmakers said N300bn was voted for recurrent expenditure, broken into four sub-components.
These include, “Conditional Cash Transfers; Home-Grown School Feeding Programme; Post NYSC Entrepreneur Development Programme; Micro Credit Loans.”
But, members observed that there was no concrete evidence that vulnerable people were already benefiting from the programmes, with just four months to the end of the year.
The Chairman, Committee on Poverty Alleviation, Mr. Mohammed Wudil, a member of the All Progressives Congress from Kano State, complained that poverty was biting harder in spite of the government having a social security package in place.
“The huge amount that was allocated to the office needs to be justified particularly now that poverty has gone so high in the country”, he said.
But, Uwais called for patience as she responded to the queries raised by the lawmakers.
She told the session that a lot of preliminary work and discussions with the various state governments had been done on how the programmes would be executed.
She said the programmes would take off fully in September – about a week away.
According to Uwais, Buhari placed the social welfare programmes under the direct supervision of the Office of Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo to underscore the importance the government attached to their successful implementation.
She explained that efforts had been made to ensure “effective monitoring and evaluation, standard delivery mechanisms, avoid duplication of roles and responsibilities, proper coordination and synergy amongst key ministries, departments and agencies.”
Uwais added that the states too were expressing commitment to the programmes.
“So far, nine states have opened a social register and 10 states have started the home-grown feeding programme for school pupils across Nigeria.
“What we proposed was N70 per meal, but some states were able to perform the feat with N40 per meal,” she told the lawmakers. Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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Grammar! Grammar!!
ReplyDeleteYou mean N500billion Naira? what! billions! billions! yet the effect of the so called billions cannot be feel by the people and they will be accusing Jonathan and his past government for squandring Nigeria's money, abeg who are the people that voted for Buhari to come and scarter Nigeria? this man has no vision nor mission, something should be done before it is too late, this not matter of hatred, we need a selfless leaders and not greedy leaders please.
ReplyDeleteMoney is Scares in their pockets, they want the cash "as e dey hot" let no single Nigerian Citizen think they are asking for its immediate implementation because they care, but because one of Buhari minister (babatunde Fashola) stood up to say law makers trying to run a budget their own way (he did not mention padding though) is wrong and that is where their annoyance has come from; this government as far as we are concerned if they is any atom of self corruption on the part of the executive, the legislatures would blow it to the world, we know that the process of growing this economy is slow, but we still have so much confidence in the leadership of the country, we have seen negatives in the one-sidedness nature of the appointments the president has made (more to the north), but for a real Nigerian who cares if such appointments would give us the desired results. If the law makers likes it or not the era of financial Jamboree is gone, you shall end every penny you spend that monumental wastage finito.... we shall now begin to respect money, institutions and governance,, write, rant, cry or even wink, we have seen the worst, and clearly we know that our worst was not cause by the present government in place, and we are ready to endure and give them this last chance to fix Nigeria. God bless the federal republic of Nigeria
ReplyDeleteWow I am impressed with you sir/madam. Yes yes yes write,rant, cry or wink....
DeleteOlori Tolu