The Special Adviser to the President on Social Investments, Mrs Maryam Uwais, said on Saturday that 620,947 vulnerable and poor people are benefiting from the National Cash Transfer scheme.

Mrs. Uwais, in a statement in Abuja, debunked the reports that claim that 6.6 million poor and vulnerable citizens were benefiting from the initiative.

In the past, media reports had quoted the Presidential aide as saying that 6.6 million people were being paid the ₦5,000 monthly allowance.

The scheme is the driving force of the National Social Investment Programme of the Nigerian 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.

She hopes that the government would overcome deficits in budgetary releases in the last three years.

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.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.