{"id":25836,"date":"2020-04-09T19:01:46","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T18:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=25836"},"modified":"2020-04-09T19:01:46","modified_gmt":"2020-04-09T18:01:46","slug":"presidency-nass-rift-over-alleged-social-investment-fraud-deepens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=25836","title":{"rendered":"Presidency, NASS’ Rift Over Alleged Social Investment Fraud Deepens"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Yemi Oyeyemi<\/strong>, Abuja.
\nThe leadership of the National Assembly said on Thursday that its observations on the modus operandi of the National Social Investment Programme, N-SIP captured the views of many Nigerians, especially feedback from the people they represent who are the targeted beneficiaries of the scheme.
\nThe leadership, led by the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, had at an interactive session with the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouk, called for more inclusiveness of poor Nigerians in the distribution chain of funds earmarked for the programme.
\nThey specifically faulted the modus operandi being used for implementing the programme, saying \u201clargest percentage of the poorest of the poor the funds are meant for across the country, don’t have telephone lines, bank accounts let alone Bank Verification Number, BVN, being used as platforms of channeling funds to beneficiaries.\u201d
\nThey consequently urged the minister to redirect the scope of the programme by capturing the actually poor people in the rural areas across the country for it as against doing so through online registration.
\nBut 24 hours after the interaction, the Special Adviser to President Muhamnadu Buhari on Social Investment, Maryam Uwais accused the National Assembly of wanting to hijack the programme.
\nUwais who supervised the programme from 2016 to 2019, said there is no way in the world where such poverty alleviating programme is given to politicians to make inputs as against community based leaders.
\nShe added that only N619 billion was cash backed out of the N1.7trillion appropriated for it between 2016 and 2019.
\nIn their reaction to Uwais\u2019 attack, Lawan and Gbajabiamila said the federal legislature took strong exception to the innuendo by the presidential aide that her rejoinder was issued towards \u201csafeguarding the entitlements of the poorest of Nigerian citizens, whose benefits are likely to cease because they are not known or connected to NASS members or any other person of influence.\u201d
\nThe leadership, in a statement by the Special Adviser on Media to the Senate President, Ola Awoniyi, maintained that \u201cthe insinuation is unfair to the members of the National Assembly and entirely baseless.\u201d
\n\u201cPublic office holders should be receptive to constructive ideas and suggestions expressed to enhance service delivery and to improve the performances of public projects and institutions.
\n\u201cThe leadership of the National Assembly is committed to sustaining its cordial working relationship with the other arms of government as it has seen the benefits of this approach in the improved environment and speed of policy and decision making.
\n\u201cBut this commitment will never deter or discourage it from asserting its considered views in the promotion and defence of good governance,\u201d the statement stressed
\nIt maintained that \u201cthe leadership of the National Assembly would not have suggested an enabling legislation for the NSIP if it does not believe in the relevance of the scheme.\u201d
\n\u201cIt is true that the leadership of the National Assembly pointed out gaps in the implementation of NSIP. As the representatives of the people, it is a key constitutional mandate of the legislature to oversight, review and makes recommendations for better implementation of important programmes of government,\u201d it added.
\nThe statement however blamed media reportage of the observation made by the two presiding officers of the National Assembly as being responsible for the rejoinder and comments made by Uwais.
\n\u201cWe believe this misrepresentation misled the Special Adviser to the President on Social Investments, Mrs. Maryam Uwais to issue a rejoinder containing unfortunate insinuations which were totally extraneous to the discussions at the meeting and the contemplations of the National Assembly,\u201d it said.
\nUwais, had in her rejoinder to some allegations generated during a meeting between the leadership of the National Assembly and the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouk, disclosed that a total of N619 billion was released to the NSIP between inception in 2016 and 2019.
\nAccording to the response, titled \u201cLawan, Gbajabiamila got it wrong\u201d, she said the National Assembly leadership had claimed that the programme, under her watch, received a total of N2 trillion in budget allocation, however, she said a total of N1.7 trillion was the budget allocation for the three years of her run as manager of the programme and that only N619.1 billion was ever released from the budgeted amount.
\nThe Presidential Adviser described allegations that beneficiaries of the programme were made to register through the internet and required BVN, as not true.
\nShe added that the allegations that the NSIP information was not accessible to the National Assembly and that the National Social Register, NSR was a scam, were also not true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Yemi Oyeyemi, Abuja. The leadership of the National Assembly said on Thursday that its observations on the modus operandi of the National Social Investment Programme, N-SIP captured the views of many Nigerians, especially feedback from the people they represent who are the targeted beneficiaries of the scheme. The leadership, led by the Senate President, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":25457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[276,303,1451],"class_list":["post-25836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-nass","tag-presidency","tag-sip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}