A group under the auspice of Concerned Citizens for Poverty Eradication (CCPE) in Nigeria has commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for his unbiased leadership and swift action towards addressing issues of alleged fraud in Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation and National Social Investment Programme Agency.
The President of the group Comrade Daniel Akowe disclosed this in a statement made available to journalists on Monday.
Akowe, who noted that the action of the President to immediately suspend the embattled minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation Betta Edu and its corresponding NSIPA has further demonstrated his stand to fight corruption in Nigeria.
Akowe commended the President Tinubu APC-led Federal Government and his predecessor former President Muhammadu Buhari for initiating people-oriented programs towards eradicating poverty in Nigeria,
According to Akowe, the swift action of President Tinubu has further confirmed to the whole world that his administration means well for the people of Nigeria in eradicating poverty.
"Our President took a step further to constitute a presidential panel to conduct a thorough review of the agency’s operations to recommend necessary frameworks of the NSIPA.
"We are therefore urging the Presidential panel to incorporate the state coordinators of the programmes appointed by the State Executive Governors to be part of these reforms in NSIPA. This would assist the presidential panel to have adequate insights of the status of implementations; impacts, challenges and recommendations for improvements.
"The State Government are integral parts of this programmes. From our findings, the Governors appointed the state coordinators also known as Focal Persons who implements the programmes at the state level to the grassroots.
"The ministry and the agency are only administering the management and financing, making payments directly to all beneficiaries and awarding contracts to contractors and consultants from the headquarters, but the state offices who are implementing and monitoring the programmes should be prioritized by the Federal Government. They have the technical know-how because they are the ones interfacing with the beneficiaries in the fields at the grassroots.
"The Federal Government on the other hands is advised to also liaise with the State Governors to ensure sanctions against any state coordinator who violates or defraud the beneficiaries in the course of the implementations".
"We are aware, base on our findings how this program has been impactful on the lives of millions of poor and vulnerable people in Nigeria.
"The NPower creates massive jobs for unemployed graduates and non-graduates. School feeding is providing meals for pupils in public primary schools thereby increasing enrollments in public schools and improving the healthy nutrition of the children.
"The Conditional Cash Transfer is a livelihood support and uplifting program that is directly reaching out to the downtrodden poorest of the poor in the rural communities, benefiting millions of poor women. Government enterprise and empowerment program (GEEP) is also creating access to finance for the micro business owners, market women and small holder farmers. We gathered these findings from various states.
"We are also aware about the newly initiated alternative school program for almajeris and street beggars and grant for Vulnerable Groups all under National Social Investment Programmes. These are laudable programs with immense benefits to over 15 million indigent Nigerians from our findings so far.This is unprecedented, first in history by any government in history of Nigeria".
He, however, identified inconsistencies, delay in payments and unpaid backlogs, poor media coverage, and failure to strengthen the state offices of NSIP as some of the challenges affecting the laudable program of the Federal Government.
Explaining further, Akowe said " the program is not frequent, if a program that ought to eradicate or alleviate poverty is not frequent, it will affect the impacts as expected and the aims may be defeated.
"We have had complains from beneficiaries of various components over delay in payments and unpaid backlogs by the Ministry. This is also not encouraging for a program aimed at alleviating poverty in the country. Prompts payments to beneficiaries would help in evaluating the impacts on the beneficiaries.
"The poor media is affecting the beautiful intention of Federal Government over this program; the Federal Government is doing alot, pumping huge sums to fight poverty but its under-reported by the Ministry in charge".
While calling the Government to sensitize the general public rigorously and adequately on public program, the group added that, the state offices implementing the programmes should be strengthened by federal government and not leave everything in the hands of the Governors.
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"While the Governors provides offices, appoints state coordinators, funding the implementation logistics to complement and support the programmes, the Federal Government still need to prioritize the state offices in terms of supports especially the support for wider media publicity and utility vehicles for effective implementations, monitoring, continuity and sustainability of the programmes"
"We recommends that whoever is going to head the ministry and agency should be carefully selected and he or she is expected to possess the experience and technical know-how on the job as it concerns Humanitarian Affairs and Social Investments due to the technicalities and sensitivities surrounding these programmes. This will give rooms for results, accountability and transparency for public confidence" he added.
Copyright: Fresh Angle International (www.freshangleng.com)
ISSN 2354 - 4104
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