FG asks EFCC to probe ‘massive fraud’ in social investment programme

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been invited to probe “massive fraud” in the Social Investments Programme (SIP).

Maryam Uwais, special adviser to the president on social investments programme, made the disclosure while briefing state house correspondents, on her presentation to the national economic council (NEC) meeting chaired by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.

She said a total of 7,812,201 Nigerians are direct beneficiaries of the programme, which include home-grown school feeding programme, conditional cash transfer, N-Power; while secondary beneficiaries – mainly farmers and cooks – are about 1,500,000.

According to Uwais, the total actual spending on SIP in 2016 and 2017 is just 15.58 percent of the budget. Half a trillion naira had been budgeted for each of the two years, meaning that only N158 billion had been released and spent.

She, however, disclosed that challenges encountered so far had been “corrupt practices in the states, like shortchanging, racketeering and harassment of beneficiaries; exploitation of the vulnerable due to poor levels of literacy; insufficient awareness/publicity and logistics for monitoring the programme”.

Uwais said while the programme is collaborating with various organisations within and outside the government to overcome the challenges, participating state governments were required to support in fraud detection and prevention.

She alleged that some officials had siphoned money to illegal bank accounts, revealing that some of those caught have been punished.