FG releases N25bn for social investment programme

The federal government has directed the immediate release of N25 billion for the take- off of its national social investment programme.

Zainab Ahmed, minister of state for budget and national planning, disclosed this while addressing state house correspondents on the outcome of the federal executive council (FEC) meeting, which was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.

She said the money was part of the N150 billion approved by the steering committee of the programme.

The current administration earmarked N500 billion in the 2016 appropriation bill for the implementation of the social investment programme.

Ahmed said the total money was N65 billion, and that the remaining N40 billion would soon be credited into the account.

“On the social investment programme, what we are doing today is to tell Nigerians that the programme is starting,” she said.

“We have approval from the steering committee in sum of N150 billion.

“So far N25 billion has been released into the account and there is another N40 billion that is in the process of being released into the account.

“Remember we said implementation would be done in stages as the states are ready for each of the programme they are added into each of the scheme.

“The school feeding programme has started in some states like Kaduna, Osun; the federal government is only adding its resources to it.

“The federal government will handle from primary 1 to 3, while the states will handle from 4 to 6.

“The ministry presented a memo to council for notation and implementation on the progress of national roll out of the social investment programme.”

The minister said the programme was in four parts.

According to her, the first is the homegrown school feeding Programme which is targeting 5.5 million primary school people in all the states of the federation from primary 1-3.

She disclosed that 11 states were set to fully start the scheme which would involve feeding 3.5 million school children.

The second is a job creation programme aimed at training 500,000 university graduates, who would be deployed to work in their local communities as teachers, agriculture workers and health support workers.

Ahmed said the graduands would be receiving a monthly stipend of N30,000 monthly for a period of two years.

She said the third scheme was the Conditional Cash Transfer ( CCT), where one million care givers would be given N5,000 monthly for a period of two years.

“Focus has been given to the extremely poor and vulnerable in our society and special emphasis is being placed to providing as many as possible in the North Eastern part of the country where a lot of Internally Displaced Persons,” she said.