Maryam Uwais, senior special
assistant to the president on social investment, has defended the federal
government’s social investment programmes (SIP).
Uwais said Aisha Buhari, wife of
President Muhammadu Buhari who criticised
SIP, would have been able to track all beneficiaries of the project if
she had access to available data.
Speaking on Channels Television,
the presidential aide said 190,000 beneficiaries are currently being paid under
the investment programmes.
Buhari’s wife had said the
programme being coordinated by Uwais has failed in the north.
She had specifically said she was
told that 30,000 women from Adamawa would benefit from the programme but
nothing of such happened.
“The SSA to the president on
social investment is a lady from Kano and I’m sure that my husband decided to
put somebody from Kano because of the population and political impact it made.
I have never asked how the money is used or being given out,” she had said.
“I met one of the president’s
aides on SIP once and he promised me that for my state (Adamawa), N10,000 each
would be given to 30,000 women but up till now, I haven’t heard from him.”
But speaking during the live
programme, Uwais said Aisha spoke without the knowledge of available records on
SIP.
She said, for instance, that the
conditional cash transfer programme is ongoing in 12 local governments in
Adamawa, while over 11,000 graduates have been recruited in a similar package.
Uwais said: “I believe that if
she (Aisha) were to listen to the information they have there, if she were to
check on our data, she would be able to track all the beneficiaries.
“Yes, she may not have met them.
But we are in 12 local governments for the cash transfer. And we are also in 12
LGAs for the loans. So, I think we have at least 290,000 beneficiaries directly
that we are paying in Adamawa state.”
Uwais said the school feeding
programme is also ongoing in over 1,000 public primary schools in Adamawa and
that much more could have been done with more funding.
“I’m saying that we have over
11,000 graduates recruited and working in her home state. We have
non-graduates, 440; we started the school feeding programme in October 2018, we
are in 1,054 public primary schools,” she said.
“And if we’ve done about 300,000
beneficiaries directly, I believe we could do so much more if we have sufficient
funding. We have only scratched the surface in the sense that we don’t have the
sufficient funding to address.”
A video clip from the TV programme:
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