620, 947 Nigerians Benefiting From The National Cash Transfer Initiative

Vulnerable Nigerians totaling about 620, 947 have been benefiting from the Federal Government’s pro-poor scheme tagged National Cash Transfer Initiative..

This is as against the 6.6 million figure being touted in some quarters.

This clarification was made by the Special Adviser to the President on Social Investments, Mrs Maryam Uwais.

She made the clarifications via a statement on Saturday in Abuja, where she added that the N5, 000 monthly stipend was not reaching 6.6 million poor and vulnerable Nigerians.

The programme is a key component of the National Social Investment Programme of the Federal Government.

“Although 1,491,296 households, comprising 6,056,872 individuals have been captured on the National Social Register, only 620,947 of them are currently receiving the monthly payments and are being supported by trained community facilitators.

“I also want to clarify reports making the rounds that the Federal Government made a budgetary provision of N30 billion for 2020, as against the usual 500 billion benchmark for the N-SIP since 2016.

“Nothing has changed in the budgeting cycle as relates to the Social Investment Programmes (SIP).

“The SIP budget has always been pegged at N400 billion, while another N100 billion has been domiciled in the Federal Ministry of Finance, as counterpart of the Social Housing Fund,” she explained.

Uwais expressed hope that shortfalls in budgetary releases in the last three years would be a thing of the past.

“In 2016, we got 16 per cent of our budget; we got 36 per cent in 2017, and 53 per cent in 2018.

“But, in spite of the shortfalls in budgetary releases, the National Social Investment Programme has been very successful.

“It has impacted on 13 million people across the country, with 44 million as secondary beneficiaries comprising families, agents, farmers and others in the value chain,” she said.