By Okechukwu Onuegbu, Awka
The federal ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster management and Social Development (FMHADMSD), Friday, trained about 150 people to independently monitor its various National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) across Anambra state communities.
The trainees were to effectively monitor the NSIP programme and beneficiaries which include N-Power, Homegrown school feeding, conditional cash transfer and government enterprise and empowerment programme with a view to ensuring they comply with the objectives.
Speaking at the event held at Awka, the minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouq, urged the monitors to carryout their responsibilities with utmost diligence and sincerity as the ministry would not hesitate from handing over any of the monitors found wanting to the security agents such as DSS, EFCC and the ICPC.
Farouq, represented by Mr Ralph Obi, the Director, planning, Research and Statistics in the ministry, explained that the monitors were carefully selected from private sectors who would discharge their duties without fear or favour so as to achieve maximum results.
“The National Social Investment programme was created by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2016 with mandate of lifting citizens out of poverty through a number of social interventions which include the creation programme (NPOWER), National Home-Grown School Feeding programme, Conditional cash transfer and the government enterprise empowerment programme.
“Today we are training independent monitors that will monitor the programme at the community level. The independent monitors will be assigned to monitor programme beneficiaries within their locality in schools, households and market clusters with the focus of ensuring that the primary objectives of these programmes are achieved. I therefore urge you to catty out this task with a sense of patriotism as we all work towards the vision of Mr President to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in the next ten years,” she added.
Also speaking, the NSIP Focal person, Chinwe Iwuchukwu, represented by the Anambra State Coordinator, State Operations Coordinating Unit (SOCU), Engr Bede Okoli, identified some numbers of beneficiaries of the programme in the state to include 8313 persons (under conditional cash transfer) from 6 pilot local government areas; 14,689 people for N-power between December 2016 to July 2020; and 126,958 pupils from 1060 public primary schools in the state.
Earlier, the State Director, National Orientation Agency (NOA), Barr. Charles Nwoji, commended the federal government for engaging independent monitors in the programme, because according to him, their activities would help to ensuring transparency, equity and fairness in its implantations.
