Nigerian Senate yesterday
declared that the N-Power and other National Social Investment Programmes under
the Buhari government were not being felt by the people.
The lawmakers stated this after
Maryam Uwais, the special adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on NSIP
informed the National Assembly that the programme received between 2016 and
2017 N175billion out of the N1 trillion approved in the budgets for the two years.
Senator Danjuma Goje, chairman of
the Senate Committee on Appropriation openly criticized the scheme when Uwais
appeared to provide clarification on the 2018 budget estimate.
The special adviser said: “You
may kindly recall that a sum of N500 billion was appropriated for the NSIP
budget in 2017, out of which N100 billion was allocated for the Social Housing
Scheme under the Federal Ministry of Finance.
“Further more, out of the balance
N400 billion, only N90 billion was released to the NSIP for the year 2017.”
She also said that the programme
received the sum of N85 billion in 2016.
“Unfortunately, N100 billion is
deducted at source for Housing Scheme by the Federal Ministry of Financ,” she
said.
However, Goje state that the NSIP
was gradually going the way of the disbanded Subsidy Reinvestment and
Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) of the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
He said the Senate would not
hesitate to drastically reduce the yearly allocation of N500 billion to NSIP if
its performance did not improve.
Goje, who stressed the importance
of the programme, noted that by the end of three years, the NSIP would have
handled N1.5 trillion which, according to him was unprecedented.
“Many people are complaining that
they have not seen the impact of the programme considering the magnitude of the
fund involved.
“I am from Gombe State, I
represent Gombe Central. I am yet to see one single boy who came to tell me
that he has benefited from your N500 billion.
“Many other Nigerians are saying
the same thing. N500 billion for 36 states is about N13 billion. If you spend
N13 billion in one year in Gombe State, there is no way I would not have known,
other people will also know.
“If you spend N500 billion in one
year in Nigeria, Nigerians will know. No single All Progressives Congress
person from Gombe State has benefited from your School Feeding Programme.
“No single person from Gombe
State has benefited from your N-Power. We don’t know about your N-Power. As far
as many of us are concerned, we are completely dissatisfied with what you are
doing,” he said.
Goje also said that there was no
indication to show that N100 billion was deducted from source for Social
Housing Scheme by the Ministry of Finance.
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com