FG Increases Beneficiaries of NSIP

By Olawale Ajimotokan

The federal government has increased the National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP), comprising the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSFP), Job Creation Unit (N-Power), and Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), to accommodate more beneficiaries.

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Sadiya Farouq, stated this yesterday at a press briefing while listing the achievements of the ministry since its creation in August last year.

She said the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) beneficiaries have been increased by one million while children on Home-Grown School Feeding programme are increased by five million.

Farouq noted that the increase in the number of beneficiaries were in line with plans by President Muhammadu Buhari to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in the next 10 years.

“In order to double the scope of the National Social Investment Programmes, the president has graciously approved the expansion of all NSIP programmes, such as increase of N-Power beneficiaries from 500,000 to 1 million; increase of GEEP beneficiaries by 1 million as well as an increase of beneficiaries of Home-Grown School Feeding programme by 5,000,000,” she said.

The minister also stated that about 1,000,000 urban poor people have been included in the National Social Register in line with the Economic Sustainability Plan, while in order to champion social inclusion, deliberate efforts were made to capture vulnerable youths and groups which included women and people with special needs.

Farouq noted that in line with the presidential directive to expand the National Social Register, the ministry has produced a register to target the urban poor in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), using existing databases from the National Communications Commission (NCC), and the Bank Verification Number (BVN) from Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) and the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy.

According to her, “As of June 2020, 4.41 per cent of the total number of individuals captured in the National Social Register is recognised as Persons with Special Needs. This comes to a total of 685,090 persons with special needs in the National Social Register.

“About 3.7 million households comprising more than 15.5 million individuals have been captured on the National Social Register. Of that number, over 2.8 million of the households which comprise 13.5 million individuals are eligible for Conditional Cash Transfer. “These numbers are spread across the 36 states and the FCT. The numbers are further broken down to 7.6 million males and 7.9 million females.

She applauded all the key stakeholders for their immense contributions to the success recorded by the ministry while calling for cooperation to ensure the ideas that led to the creation of the ministry is not defeated.

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