The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) has declared that the 31% of the annual budget of N500 billion released for three years for the National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP) have delivered measurable results in the country.
President Muhammadu Buhari in 2016 introduced the NSIP to alleviate poverty among Nigerians.
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N470,825,522,694.62 has so far been released for the NSIP being 31% of the appropriated amount for the period: 2016 – N79,985,158,705.32 and 2017 – N140,000,000,000.00 and 2018 – N250,840,363,989.30
The conclusion of an empirical review recently conducted by NESG and submitted to the Presidency showed that the SIP is meeting it’s targets across the country despite the low release of funds.
A senior government official, who spoke with The Nation on Wednesday night on a condition of anonymity said “The report concluded that the National Social Investment Programme are delivering the stated Federal Government Objectives and Outcomes.”
‘The review also noted that the NSIP have delivered measurable results even though it has only received 31% of the annual budget of N500Billion.”
“Equally it also concluded that the Buhari Social Investment Programme has succeeded as a programme beyond political party lines as is evidenced by the adoption of State Governments that are not in the ruling party and therefore has the design framework for transparency, trust and equitable application across the Federation.” he said
He explained that any objective review of the 4 sets of the SIP: (N-Power, Homegrown School Feeding, Conditional Cash Transfer and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme, GEEP, which includes MarketMoni, FarmerMoni & TraderMoni) will show that there has been appreciable success and impact across the country.
According to him, the NESG review is backed up by thousands of video testimonials of beneficiaries on the social media.
Noting that the Homegrown School Feeding programme for instance was designed partly to increase enrollment and completion rates in Primary School, he said that the independent review concluded that “enrollment from the sample of schools studied found teachers in schools reported a 12.5% increase in the average number of pupils enrolled.”
“A large proportion of teachers about 92.1% across 600 schools sampled across 6 states in each of the 6 geopolitical zones reported an increase in enrollment.”
Regarding the Conditional Cash Transfer, CCT, the review found that the NSIP objective to use the Transfer to raise household consumption has also been met.
According to the report, regarding food consumption the CCT “has a significant positive impact on essential food nutrient consumption amongst beneficiary households with an overall impact estimate of NGN814.39.
“Results indicate that beneficiaries have a total expenditure on food of NGN3,674.48 while non-beneficiaries spend NGN2,860.07.
On the impact of the GEEP programmes, which has the objective of improving microloans on investment in working capital, the review reported “ an average increase of NGN6,729.27 in sales and NGN45,833.78 in the value of MSMEs that received MarketMoni.
“TraderMoni beneficiaries increased their savings in bank accounts, showing there is an increase in savings for people who choose to save in a bank account, this indicates a greater use of financial services for TraderMoni beneficiaries.”
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