President Tinubu has created a six-person panel to reposition Nigeria’s social investment programmes and improve citizen’s confidence in investment programmes.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has set up a special presidential panel to review social investment programmes in the country.
The minister of finance, Wale Edun, has been named to lead the panel in undertaking its task, according to a statement issued by the presidential media adviser, Ajuri Ngelale, on Saturday, January 13, 2024.
This follows the suspension of four programmes under the National Social Investment Programmes Agency (NSIPA) for six weeks.President Tinubu had suspended these programmes following the financial scandal in the humanitarian ministry which supervised them.
He also directed that all NSIPA-related activities, including distributions, events, payments, collaborations and registrations, be suspended pending the outcome of an investigation.
“All four programmes administered by NSIPA – N-Power Programme, Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme, and Home Grown School Feeding Programme (the “Programs”) have been suspended for six weeks in the first instance,” the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume had announced.
According to the statement, President Tinubu created the special panel to win back all lost public confidence in these vital programmes over the years. The president’s goal is to usher in a new era of operation based on open and accountable governance frameworks.
The panel is to conduct a comprehensive review and audit of existing financial frameworks and policy guidelines of the social investment programmes. Their goal is to implement “a total re-engineering of the financial architecture of the programmes with detailed modifications to procedures guiding the programmes’ implementation moving forward.”
Members of the panel are: the minister of health and social welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate; minister of budget and economic planning, Mr. Abubakar Atiku Bagudu; and the minister of information and national orientation, Mohammed Idris Malagi.
Others are the minister of communications, innovation and digital economy, Bosun Tijani, and the minister of state for youth, Ayodele Olawande.
Recall that the suspended minister of humanitarian affairs and disaster management, Betta Edu, and her predecessor, Sadiya Faruq, are being investigated by the anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Betta Edu was also summoned by the EFCC and had to appear at its headquarters in Abuja, on Tuesday, January 9, 2024.
She was however released after being questioned in respect of the approval she gave for the payment of about N585 million of the ministry’s funds into the private account of a civil servant.
