FG Distributes Engagement Letters, Devices to Independent Monitors

Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja

The federal government through the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development has distributed engagement letters and tablets to trained Independent Monitors to track the various packages of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) in Benue States.

The representative of the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Mr. Iorwa Apera, who is the National Coordinator of NASSCO, said the ministry was repositioning the NSIP in line with the federal government’s commitment to lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty.

She charged them to consider themselves as the eyes and ears for the effective implementation of the programme, while admonishing them not to assume the role of the Implementation Team in the discharge of their duties.

She said the programmes include the job creation programme N-POWER, National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), Conditional Cash Transfer Programme (CCT) and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP).

“We flagged off the training of 5000 Independent Monitors for the National Social Investment Programme in Abuja on Thursday, February 4, 2021.

“The training was carried out across the Country from February 2021 to April 2021. Each Independent monitor is expected to monitor a designated number of beneficiaries of the National Social Investment Programme,” she said.

“They will be paid a monthly stipend of N30,000, and they must meet up to 80 per cent of their deliverables monthly to be eligible for their stipend,’’ she added.
The minister warned the independent monitors not to assign their responsibilities to third parties and urged them to carry out the assignment with utmost patriotism, diligence and sincerity.

She added that: “The Ministry reserves the right to disengage an Independent Monitor for misconduct or noncompliance with set guidelines and directives. I hereby urge you to carry out this assignment with utmost sense of patriotism, diligence, and sincerity”.

The Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom, who was represented by the Focal Person on the National Social Investment Programme, Terris Damsa, charged them to make judicious use of the opportunity.

He noted that their job is strategic as they would be helping, through the feedback that they provide, towards the evaluation of programme performance, compliance, appraising the policy environment and gauging the level of delivery for the bouquet of programmes under the National Social Investments Programme.

He challenged them to ensure that their aggregate performance would approximate the intended purposes, outputs and desired outcomes of the NSIP.