Senior Special Assistant to the President on Social Investment, Mrs Maryam Uwais, has defended the federal government’s Social Investment Programmes, SIP.
Her defence came against the backdrop of last weekend’s claims by wife of the President, Mrs. Aisha Buhari that the programme had failed in the north.
Mrs Buhari Buhari had specifically said she was told that 30,000 women from Adamawa, her home state, would benefit from the programme but that nothing of such happened.
“The SSA to the president on social investment is a lady from Kano and I’m sure that my husband decided to put somebody from Kano because of the population and political impact it made. I have never asked how the money is used or being given out.
“I met one of the president’s aides on SIP once and he promised me that for my state (Adamawa), N10,000 each would be given to 30,000 women but up till now, I haven’t heard from him,” she had said.
But speaking on Channels Television programme Monday, Mrs Uwais said Mrs Buhari would have been able to track beneficiaries of the programme if she had access to available data.
The presidential aide said 190,000 beneficiaries were currently being paid under the investment programmes.
Uwais said Aisha Buhari spoke without the knowledge of available records on SIP, adding
that the conditional cash transfer programme was ongoing in 12 local governments in Adamawa, while over 11,000 graduates had been recruited in a similar package in the state.
Uwais said: “I believe that if she (Aisha) were to listen to the information they have there, if she were to check on our data, she would be able to track all the beneficiaries.
“Yes, she may not have met them. But we are in 12 local governments for the cash transfer. And we are also in 12 LGAs for the loans. So, I think we have at least 290,000 beneficiaries directly that we are paying in Adamawa State.”
Uwais said the school feeding programme was also ongoing in over 1,000 public primary schools in Adamawa State and that much more could have been done with more funding.
“I’m saying that we have over 11,000 graduates recruited and working in her home state. We have non-graduates, 440; we started the school feeding programme in October 2018, we are in 1,054 public primary schools.
“If we’ve done about 300,000 beneficiaries directly, I believe we could do so much more if we have sufficient funding. We have only scratched the surface in the sense that we don’t have the sufficient funding to address,” she said.
