Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on
Thursday stated that the Buhari government has committed N500billion to Social
Investment Programme.
He described this as the largest
pro-poor programme in Nigeria’s history, and the largest social safety net in
Sub-Saharan Africa.
Osinbajo, in his speech at the
10th Bola Tinubu Colloqium in Lagos, sad this was despite the fact that by
2015, oil prices fell by over 50% and production also fell from over 2 million
barrels a day to less than 700,000 barrels a day, sometimes even 500,000
barrels in 2016.
He said: “We have seen today the
empirical evidence of the successes of this programme, and all of that is
evident for us to see and listen to several testimonies and stories. 200,000
jobs for undergraduates employed under the N-Power programme, 300,000 more
waiting to be employed; they have been pre-selected; over 7 million children
being fed daily in 22 States so far; beneficiaries of microcredit loans going
to about 300,000; and almost 300,000 households benefiting from conditional
cash transfers.
“In 2014, when oil was at between
100 dollars and 114 dollars a barrel, the actual releases for capital for three
ministries – Power, Works and Housing – then they were three separate
ministries, was in total N99 billion; while Transportation got 14 billion, and
Agriculture got 15 billion. I’m talking about actual releases, not budgeted,
what they actually got.
“Let’s compared that with capital
releases to the same ministries in 2017, when oil price was between $50 and $60
a barrel, N415 Billion for Power, Works & Housing, N80 Billion for
Transportation; N65 Billion for Agriculture; totalling N560 Billion, in a time
when we were earning at least 50% less than we were earning in 2014.
“And when we say that this same
government that spent N139 Billion only on all of Agric, Power, Works and
Housing, Transport, etc; spent between January 2015 and the elections, the sum
of a N100 Billion in cash and 289 million dollars, altogether about a 100
Billion in cash, was released and spent, shared. This sum of money was in
excess of the amount of money that was spent on Power, Works and Housing.
“I will just give you one last
example. Three billion US dollars was lost to something called the Strategic
alliance contracts in NNPC, 3 Billion US Dollars, and never paid back. Now, the
same 3 Billion dollars, the Minister of Finance sat with us at a meeting of the
Economic Management Team, and we are proposing; in fact 3 billion dollars is
about a trillion naira.
“We are now proposing foreign
loans for the same 3 billion dollars: (to build the following roads):
Abuja-Kaduna-Kano road, 2nd Niger Bridge, Enugu-Port Harcourt road, East-West
road, Sagamu-Ore-Benin road, Kano-Maiduguri road, Abuja-Lafia-Akwanga-Keffi
road, and Lagos-Abeokuta: the old road, all for the same 3 billion.
“Today we earn almost 50% less
than five years ago and we are investing several times more. In 2017 we spent
1:3 Trillion on capital, the largest in the history of this country, despite
earning 50% less. The majority of our people depend on the integrity of those
who govern them because they don’t have the odds. They are far too poor, in
many cases, far too vulnerable to be able to say anything for themselves.”
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A round of applause to the APC government, keep it up
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