CSO Faults Coverage of FG’s N500bn Social Welfare Scheme

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The Nigerian Civil Society Situation Room has expressed concern over the limited access to the social welfare programme recently launched by the federal government to cushion the effects of the economic hardship.

In line with the objective of reducing the pain suffered by the weak ones in the society, the managers of the safety net said yesterday that it want to touch the lives of about 3,742,317 Nigerians.

The Executive Director of PLAC, Clement Nwankwo, who spoke in Abuja last Thursday at an interactive meeting with the Special Adviser to the President on Social Protection, Maryam Uwais, said aside from need for transparency, it has become necessary to improve on the spread of the social facility.

“We are aware that not all the states have the poorest of the poor, but we know that it will make for equitable distribution of resource if the welfare programme is well spread,” he said.

Nwankwo said with a good roll-out plan and strict adherence to the ideals of transparency, the federal government safety net is capable of attracting the desired support from both development partners and other private individuals may join hands to fund the programme.

He expressed the confidence of the civil society group that the present managers of the programme would not disappoint Nigerians and that they will make fairness and transparency their watch word.

“We see the programme as something that could help cushion the effects of the present hardship that the country is facing at this time. The country is definitely facing serious economic challenges. The situation has never been like this before.

“The country has gone through four successive quarters of recession with low or negative economic growth rate. This is not what the people bargained for when they voted for the new administration in 2015,” he said.

Nwankwo added that the implementation of the scheme’s Special Intervention Project is designed for delivery under five clearly defined programmes, including N-Power, Home Grown School Feeding, Cash Transfers, Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) and STEM.

He gave further details of the implementation, stating that for the CCT scheme, a total of 69, 870 poor Nigerians from nine states have so far begun to draw the N5,000 stipend per month.

For the HGSF, the scheme has successfully fed 3,448,657 primary school pupils in 18 states since it started, while the N-Power programme has engaged 200,000 graduates spread across the country. Under the scheme, 150,000 were engaged in teaching; 30,000 in agro-industry and 20,000 in health.

He also explained that under the GEEP programme, payment has begun in 14 states plus FCT, covering about 23,790 beneficiaries.
Maryam Uwais also spoke on some of the challenges and constraints facing the implementation of the scheme, listing factors such as lack credible register of the poor, improper targeting of beneficiaries, limited coverage to poor monitoring and valuation.