Senate condemns implementation of N500bn Social Intervention Scheme

The Senate has expressed dismay over the manner the N500 billion special intervention programme was being implemented.

It therefore urged the Executive to take another look at the intervention programme to incorporate manual registration of beneficiary from all wards and local governments in the country.

Adopting a motion sponsored by Senate Leader Ali Ndume on Tuesday, the upper chamber also urged the Presidency to ensure that the implementation of the Intervention programme is robust enough to reach the poorest in our community for whom the programme was first conceived.

It also asked that “a clear channel of accountability for the implementation of the program be created and be audited on a continuous basis and its report presented to the National Assembly.”

Presenting the motion, Ndume informed his colleagues that a huge amount of N80 billion has already been taken out of the N500 billion without any explanation on what the money was spent on.

“The Senate is concerned that the implementation of such a huge programme is now being carried out in the same manner as the other failed social interventions funds like the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme SURE-P, without a proper framework which led to their failures” he said.

According to him, “In the light of the recent petitions and complaints from our constituencies this money will not be well spent, nor will it achieve any major benefit to the economy despite the good intentions of Government because of the way it’s been structured.

“The motion believed that a proper social intervention scheme must be robust enough to capture all segment of the Nigerian population.

“We are not building a nation for elites alone, but a nation for all citizens” Ndume declared.

He observed that “with the way the programme is being run, nothing of meaningful value is going to be achieved with the N500 billion, neither is it going to create the future value it could, if implemented effectively”.

He noted that the directive that all beneficiaries should register online have the tendency to exclude and marginalize the very segment of the population it should target which are the poor and their children.

He added that “the new concept requiring teachers, market women and graduates, to register online, is faulty and discriminates against rural women and men who are technologically disabled”

He drew the attention of the Senate to the fact that “there is nothing on the ground to do a proper oversight on the project as it is yet unclear how each state, local govemment to the ward level of our country is going to benefit from this programme.”