Last updated on July 21st, 2021 at 07:29 am
After several denials, the Federal Government has finally announced the disengagement of 500, 000 N-Power beneficiaries across Nigeria.
According to the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development Sadiya Umar Farouq, the plan is to give room for fresh intake.
She said that the Batch A and B N-Power beneficiaries will exit the scheme June 30 and July 31, 2020 respectively while N-Power application will begin on June 26 for N-Power Batch C Recruitment.
Batch A consisted of 200, 000 beneficiaries from 2016 while the 300, 000 volunteers were onboarded during the 2017 application process.
A statement from the ministry said, “We have commenced the transitioning of beneficiaries from Batches A & B into government entrepreneurship schemes and engaging private sector bodies to absorb some of the beneficiaries after the completion of psychometric assessment to determine competency and placement into various opportunities.”
Let’s take a quick look at some of the statements by officials of the N-SIP programme since the news about the FG’s plan to disengage beneficiaries began in 2019.
Overhauling N-Power
On Monday, February 24, 2020, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development announced that the N-Power programme and other components of N-SIP would be overhauled.
The first thing that comes to the mind of most of the beneficiaries of the programme is: the decision of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC government to end the youth empowerment programme which came into effect in 2016.
Federal Government is ending the programme provided the All Progressive Congress (APC) is still in power.
In this post, we’ll break down the statement issued by the Assistant Director of Information, Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Rhoda Ishaku Iliya entitled, “FG to overhaul National Social Investment Programmes” (N-SIP)
Meanwhile, the minister of finance has disclosed that GEEP loan would be accessible to the exited N-Power beneficiaries.
Things to know about N-SIP
The N-SIP houses four major components, they include:
- Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP)
- Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT)
- National Home Grown Feeding Programme (NHGSP)
- N-Power
The above components are under the N-SIP which the Minister Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouq said would be overhauled.
N-Power Overhaul, what does it really mean and what you need to know
Overhauling N-Power and other NSIP components means that the government wants to re-evaluate the programme.
Some of the things the government will be doing include:
Replace any of the components that isn’t working as it should.
Make the necessary change to any of the components that isn’t providing the needed results for a better improvement.
10 Things To Know About Buhari’s Plan To Overhaul N-Power and N-SIP Components
1) To ensure maximum transparency, greater efficiency and more prudent application of resources.
2) The APC-led government will be undertaking and and enforcing due diligence in the National Social Investment Programmes (NSIPs)
3) It will also be enforcing more compliance from beneficiaries
4) Erring N-Power volunteers will be kicked out of the programme as they are parasites to the programme
5) The Buhari-led government also plans to remove middle men from the programme, the N-SIP is designed to the vulnerable people in Nigeria.
6) This also means that the N-Power 2016 batch should be ready to be exited from the programme.
7) Erring 2017 batch of youth empowerment programme will affect erring beneficiaries who do not report at their places of Place of Primary Assignment. The government is aware of this and it seems its ready to kick out the parasites among them.
8) Part of the overhauling include to institutionalising the NSIPs, this is because the government spends billions of tax payers money on the programme monthly.
9) Beneficiaries may continue to experience delay in payment of stipend as the overhauling of the N-Power programme continues.
10) Civil servants who have been collecting monthly stipend illegally may be prosecuted or lose their jobs if they are caught to be among N-Power or other N-SIP beneficiaries.
In the communique signed
y the ministry’s director of information, “The Ministry and its agencies will continue to render services to Nigerians in humanitarian situations effectively, deliver relief to those affected by disasters, evolve and implement policies that drive social development and facilitate economic inclusion for the benefit of the most vulnerable in the country.”
Sadiya Farouq speaks on rumour to scrap N-Power (Nov 2, 2019)
On November 2, 2019, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq has assured beneficiaries of N-Power programme that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has no plan to scrap the youth empowerment programme.
She made the statement on Monday, December 2, 2019 while speaking on the causes of delay of two months stipends of the beneficiaries of the programme.
The minister had earlier revealed that the delay of October and November stipends was due to a proper handing over which is still ongoing in her ministry.
She said, “There should be no apprehension with regards to the continuity or sustainability of the SIP as the government will continue to adequately fund them and ensure that they reach the beneficiaries and touch lives positively.”
N-SIP is one of the agencies under the purview of her ministry.
It wasn’t the first time rumour of scrapping of N-Power would surface. In 2018, Senator Danjuma Goje’s call to scrap the Social Investment Programmes (SIPs) caused apprehension among beneficiaries across the country.
Goje was chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation at the time when he threatened to cut down on the proposed National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP) N500 billion allocations in the 2018 budget over an allegation that no single person from Gombe State had benefited from the N-Power programme.
But Gombe State government replied him describing his claim as “untrue” noting that the State enjoyed the services of over 2,800 beneficiaries of NPower programme at the time.
“It may interest the senators that 2,809 food vendors are currently providing highly nutritious meals to about 286,000 pupils in the state.
“In Senator Goje’s Senatorial District, 162 food vendors have been verified to provide meals for 14,342 pupils daily in the Senator’s local government which happens to have the highest number of vendors and pupils in the State,” a top government official at the time Hajia M.I Mele had said.
N-Power, School feeding, others get N30 billion in 2020 Budget (October 8, 2019)
The sum of N30 billion was proposed for the N-Power scheme and other programmes under the Social Investment Programme by President Muhammadu Buhari as he presented the 2020 appropriation bill before the National Assembly on Tuesday, October 8, 2019 in Abuja.
With a total expenditure of N10.73 trillion, N30 billion will be channelled into the SIP for 2020. The government said Nigeria is targetting a revenue of N8.155 trillion.
The National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) is under the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs headed by Sadiya Umar Farouq.
N-SIP houses four programmes, they include:
- N-Power which currently have 526,000 beneficiaries, graduates and non-graduates
- National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) which has fed 9,817,568 school children.Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) which has 394,430 beneficiaries
- Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme which houses TraderMoni, MarketMoni etc, it has 2,136,911 beneficiaries
Households in the National Social Register with 1,132,675 beneficiaries at the time of this report.
NSIP is a social security agency created in 2015 by the APC-led Federal Government of Nigeria to manage social investment programmes within Nigeria.
Is N-Power 2016 batch part of 2020 budget?
With the transition programme being planned by the APC-led government, we want to belive that N-Power batch 2016 beneficiaries are included in the 2020 budget. The implementation of the transition programme will gulp several billions of Naira.
However, by our calculation, the monthly salary of the 2016 batch alone amount to over N70 billion in 2020, unless there is another source of financing the initiative.
Buhari said, “MDAs are not allowed to admit new projects into their provisions unless adequate provisions are made for the completion of ongoing projects.”
Meanwhile, Buhari has barred all ministers from embarking on foreign trips until they are done with the defence of their budget.
200,000 beneficiaries to leave N-Power for fresh intake- Maryam Uwais
In October 15, 2019, Mrs Maryam Uwais, the Senior Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on the National Social Investment Programme (N-SIP) hinted that the first batch of N-Power programme would be disengaged by 2020.
The programme started in 2016 with 200, 000 beneficiaries earning N30, 000 as monthly stipend across the country.
The NSIP boss stated this on Tuesday, October 15, 2019 while featuring on Good Morning Nigeria where she spoke extensively on the success recorded so far since the youth empowerment programme of the APC-led government kick started in 2016.
“We’ll disengage the existing beneficiary probably by the end of this year and the portal will be open for New applicants.
“No provision for N-Power 2016 batch in 2020 budget, by next year (2020) 1st phase of the program (200,000) will be disengaged and another 300,000 volunteers will be engaged,” she said on NTA.
Shedding more light on why the Federal Government came up with the idea of Transition Programme, she said “That is probably the reason why Transition path was added on the NPVN Portal, by next year, 2016 N-Power beneficiaries will transit to another programme.”
The N-Power transition page was launched as part of the plan, but it was deactivated a few minutes later, N-Power on social media says it was still testing the efficiency of the new button on the NPVN portal of the 2016 batch.
“We are trying to see how we can address some of these gaps through these N-power beneficiaries that are meant to be disengaged by end of the year.
“We are looking out loans to be made available to them, it has not be finalized yet with the finance ministry,” she added.