By Nathaniel Zacchaeus, Abuja
The Senate yesterday confirmed the appointment of Mrs Halima Shehu as the pioneer National Coordinator and Chief Executive Officer of the National Social Investment Programmes Agency (NSIPA).
The Federal Government launched several social investment programmes aimed at pulling Nigerians out of poverty.
The National Coordinator and CEO of NSIPA explained the reason the poverty level in Nigeria had not been reduced despite the billions sunk in the programme.
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There were, however, complaints that the programmes had failed to address poverty despite gulping hundreds of billions of naira.
Shehu told the Senators during her screening that poverty persisted in the country because none of the programmes had been implemented to its logical conclusion.
She said the conditional cash transfer despite criticisms, remained the best policy to ameliorate poverty.
She also said the scheme was very transparent because the World Bank was supervising the project.
She said, “I will tell you for a fact, the conditional cash transfer programme, in as much as there are criticisms, I know there are gaps, there are challenges. I would like to tell you that the accountability persons of the various institution, firms, and the World Bank is being supervised by the development partners and the World Bank.
“At the office, we do not come in contact with the physical person even when we are doing it except when we go to the field, so the disbursement of the cash starts from the CBN where the account is domiciled through the payment service provided.
“The disbursement is done by the payment service providers. It is where all disbursements are being made, even when we became digitized, there are monitors.
“The payment service providers will come back to the bank and a team of reconciliation of all these banks will come together to reconcile what has been paid and what has not been paid, and exact unpaid balances are remitted back to the CBN account. This is how transparent the conditional cash transfer is. So, it is safe to say that this programme has not been taken to its logical conclusion.”
Shehu said she participated fully in the $800m World Bank loan from the beginning to the end, explaining that it was meant to continue on the core responsibilities and the livelihood ground which had yet to start.
Senate President Godswill Akpabio said the social investment programmes were too complicated to the extent that even lawmakers were confused.
“I don’t know whether the programme or programmes were intentionally designed to be complicated enough to confuse citizens because this is the first time I am hearing that within the programme is embedded the one known as a livelihood. So, the entirety of the programme will have to be reviewed,” he said.
