FG disburses N320.6bn for social intervention in 14 months – Uwais

The Federal Government has disbursed $103,637,559 (N320,609,455,190 based on N305/$) from August 2018 to October 2019, a statement from the National Social Investment Office (NSIO) has said.

The statement, signed by Justice Tienabeso Bibiye, quoted Mrs Maryam Uwais, the Special Adviser to the President on Social Investments, to have stated this at a workshop in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

She said that the Federal Government, through the National Social Investment Office, NSIO, had been channelling the recovered “Abacha loot” and the International Development Association IDA/World Bank Credit towards programmes and policies designed to address the plight of poor and vulnerable Nigerians.

Mrs Uwais said the funds, which are specifically being disbursed to beneficiaries of the National Cash Transfer Programme (a component of the National Social Investment Programme N-SIP), was positively changing the fortunes of many Nigerians who find themselves below the poverty line, based on the data collated in the communities and hosted on the National Social Register (comprising each of the State Social Registers).

The workshop, according to the statement, was a two-day Experts’ Training and Advocacy on Tracing and Recovery of Illicit Funds and Assets, organized by the Human Environmental Development Agenda HEDA, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

She said “from the August/Sept 2018 to the Sept/Oct payment cycle, the total cumulative value so far disbursed from the Abacha Loot is $76,538,530, and $27,099,028 from the IDA credit.”

She said “the decision to distribute the Abacha loot and IDA funds to poor and vulnerable citizens, who are mined from a National Social Register NSR, collated by the National Social Safety Net Coordinating Office NASSCO, was reached by the Swiss Government, the World Bank and the Federal Government of Nigeria, to ensure that the funds are well utilized and not diverted to private pockets, as was the case in the past.”