The Federal Government said it has spent N22 million dollars recovered as loot from former Military Head of State, Sani Abacha, on Social Investment Programmes (SIPs).
This was revealed by the Special Adviser to the President SIPs, Mrs. Maryam Uwais, on Thursday when she briefed State House reporters after giving an account of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
She explained that government got N470.8 billion released between 2016 and last year for the implementation of SIP.
She named four-broad programmes of SIP as the N-Power, Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT), National Home-Grown School Feeding, and Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programmes (GEEP).
According to her, from 2016 till date, the Federal Government budgets annually N500 billion for social investments but only N79.98 billion was released in 2016.
In 2017, she N140 billion was released and N250.4 billion in 2018.
She further said that out of the N322 million dollars recovered Abacha loot meant for the SIPs, only N22 million dollars had been utilised by her office.
Mrs. Uwais also said that at the end of March, the NSIPs had made direct impacts on 12,069,153 beneficiaries and over 30 million secondary beneficiaries, comprising cooks, farmers, families, employees and members of the community.
“Under N-Power, we have 526,000 youth spread across 774 LGAs teaching in public schools, acting as health workers in primary health centres and as agric extension advisors to small holder farmers in our communities.
“Nigeria is fast on its way to becoming the leader in Africa in the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme, by feeding over 9.7 Million pupils and still counting.
“Today, we have 103,992 cooks on our payroll, feeding 9,714,342 pupils in 53,715 government primary schools around 31 States. These children are able to eat a balanced diet, towards improving their learning outcomes.
“Also, under the GEEP, we have the FarmerMoni, MarketMoni and TraderMoni.
“For the first two, funds between N10, 000 and N350,000 are paid into the accounts of the successful applicants who belong to a registered cooperative and have a bank account.
“For TraderMoni, petty traders are given a loan of N10, 000 each and upon repayment within six months, the beneficiary becomes eligible for a higher amount, at which point they must open bank accounts,” she said.
