Date: 2020-09-10

The Nigerian government has said that it expended a total sum of N13.3 billion to N15,246 on N-Power beneficiaries comprising batches A and B who volunteered in Kwara State before they exited the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP).

The Kwara State NSIP Focal Person, Bashirah Abdulrazaq, disclosed this on Wednesday, according to a report published on The Nation Newspaper.

Ms Abdulrazaq also said about N1.3 billion was spent on 10,000 people who benefited from the "trader moni" programme in the state. The N-Power is Nigeria's work-for-cash social assistance scheme with enrollees paid N30,000 monthly with thousands of direct beneficiaries spread across the key industries targeted by the programme - agriculture, building, health, education, and tax establishment in the state.

Among the five N-Power components, education subcomponent is the most popular, due to a large number of youth deployed to teach in public schools.

The scheme recently disengaged both Batch A and B graduates enrolled in the N-Power scheme, opening a new portal for fresh intakes of volunteers that have seen a record of over five million people that so far applied.

Statistics on Expenditure

According to the report, the Kwara State focal person, however, gave a breakdown of the total expenses spent in a period of five years.

She said the batch A beneficiaries in Kwara state, who were engaged for a period of 42 months, gulped a total sum of N7.4 billion, while the batch B beneficiaries received a total sum of N5.7 billion in 24 months.

"Non-graduates received the sum of N10,000 every month and were engaged for a period of 24 months with a total sum of over N24 million spent," she added.

Ms Abdulrazaq also said that the Kwara State government has replicated the youth empowerment programme, codenamed K-Power, in order not to throw beneficiaries into the labour market after exiting N-Power.

She also said that about 10,000 people benefitted from the "trader moni" programme in the state with over N1.3 billion disbursed to them. She regretted that the people were not willing to repay the loan.

"Poor masses are not ready to repay the loan after collection because of the attitude of Nigerian to anything from the government thinking it is a national cake. Also, those that disbursed the money do not have records of beneficiaries like phone numbers and addresses. Thus, making it difficult to track them for repayment.

"The programme is designed to provide soft loans to boost small scale businesses in the markets which Vice President Yemi Osinbajo flagged off sometime last year to support women with N10,000 as soft loans to be paid back and then enjoy the next stage of N50,000.

"Unfortunately, many beneficiaries didn't pay back or the channel for payment was not identified, therefore, beneficiaries could not fulfil their pledges.

"Though, the component is going through restructuring to see it achieves its objectives," she said.

Ms Abdulrazaq also said that the state government has replicated NSIP scheme in the state, tagged Kwara state Social investment programme, (KWASSIP), adding that, 'in view of that, governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq keyed into the programme by establishing the following: owo arugbo – stipend for the aged, owo isowo- soft loans to petty traders, ounje ofe – homegrown free feeding programme for public primary school pupils and K-Power for the unskilled youth."