{"id":3025,"date":"2022-12-02T15:13:42","date_gmt":"2022-12-02T15:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/?p=3025"},"modified":"2022-12-02T15:13:46","modified_gmt":"2022-12-02T15:13:46","slug":"buhari-seeks-passage-of-social-investment-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/buhari-seeks-passage-of-social-investment-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Buhari Seeks Passage of Social Investment Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The National Assembly on 29th<\/sup> November 2022, received an Executive bill for the establishment of a National Social Investment Programme, from President Muhammadu Buhari. It is a bill for an Act to provide a legal and institutional framework for the establishment and management of a National Social Investment Programme in Nigeria. The Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development created under President Buhari\u2019s administration, currently co-ordinates all issues of humanitarian affairs and social development in Nigeria. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. The\nNational Social Investment Programme established by the bill consists of: <\/li>
  2. N-Power\nProgramme; <\/li>
  3. National\nCash Transfer programme;<\/li>
  4. Government\nEnterprise and Empowerment Programme; and <\/li>
  5. Such other\nProgrammes as may be approved by the President. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    The bill provides for a National Programme\nManager for each programme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The bill establishes a National Social\nInvestment Programme Agency and a Governing Board for the execution and\nmanagement of the Programme. The Board shall comprise a Chairman, the National\nCo-ordinator of the Programme (who shall be the Secretary of the Board), representatives\nof select Federal Ministries, Chief Executives of select government agencies,\nrepresentatives from the Nigeria Governors\u2019 Forum, Association of Local\nGovernments of Nigeria (ALGON), civil society organisations, non-governmental\norganisations, international development partners, international\nnon-governmental organisations, Chairman of the State Co-ordinators\u2019 Forum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The Agency shall be headed by a National\nCo-ordinator who will be appointed by the President on the recommendation of\nthe Minister (in charge of  humanitarian affairs,\nsocial inclusion and poverty eradication), who shall hold office for a term of\nfour years and may be re-appointed for another term of four years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The functions of the National Social\nInvestment Programme Agency include the following, among others: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. oversee the implementation of policies, projects relating to the\nProgramme; <\/li>
    2. conduct overall monitoring, evaluation, impact assessment and review the\nimplementation of the Programme; <\/li>
    3. collaborate and interface with State Coordinators; <\/li>
    4. maintain and facilitate the use of the National Social Register established\nunder this Act; <\/li>
    5. establish skill acquisition centres for the purpose of training of\nbeneficiaries of the Programme and other persons; <\/li>
    6. develop\nregulations on accountability measures and mechanisms; <\/li>
    7. conduct overall monitoring, evaluation and review of the Programme; <\/li>
    8. from time to time, designate inspectors or monitors, to such areas of\nNigeria as it may determine, to inspect ongoing execution of Programme by the\nAgency; <\/li>
    9. collaborate with\nthe media on advocacy and mobilisation activities.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      The bill requires State Governments\nparticipating in the programme to establish a State Social Investment Programme\nAgency headed a State Co-ordinator, who shall act as a liaison between the\nState Government and the Agency. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The Agency\u2019s programmes are targeted at\nunemployed persons including unskilled persons, vulnerable widows, orphans and\nchildren, persons with disabilities, vulnerable older persons and such other\npersons as the National Social Investment Board may determine with the approval\nof the President. The beneficiaries are required to be enrolled with the Agency,\nwhich may carry out investigations to verify the eligibility of the applicants.\nThe bill stipulates that the payment of social investment benefits to a\nbeneficiary shall lapse in the event of death or if the condition upon which\nthe person was considered a beneficiary ceases to exist. The bill also\nestablishes a National Social Register, containing the information and data of\npoor and vulnerable persons and households from the States and the Federal\nCapital Territory (FCT). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The bill further establishes a National\nSocial Investment Programme Fund which will be financed with sums appropriated\nfor the Programme by the National Assembly, other sums provided by the Federal\nGovernment; grants, gifts, donations, endowments and bequest made to the Agency;\nmonies from individuals, companies, government institutions and development\npartners; and at least 5% of recovered repatriated funds. The Fund shall be\nused for the payment of benefits to beneficiaries of the Programme, actualising\nthe functions and powers of the Agency, payment of allowances and benefits to\nBoard members and other purposes incidental to the objectives of the Programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      A World Bank report projected that 95.1 million persons will be living below the poverty line in 2022. It is important to have social welfare programmes in place to cater for the most vulnerable people in society. However, it is important to ensure that the impact of such programmes is far-reaching to the extent that they empower the beneficiaries to eventually become self-sufficient. PLAC had earlier written about the Nigerian Government\u2019s poverty alleviation schemes https:\/\/bit.ly\/3gRs0XZ<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The National Social Investment Programme\nbill provides a satisfactory legal framework to address social welfare schemes\nin Nigeria. However,  the membership of\nthe Board of the National Social Investment Programme Agency as provided in the\nbill is very wide and needs to be streamlined, particularly with regard to the\nnumber of government ministries and agencies represented in the Board. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      It is\nimportant to note that there also exists the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust\nFund, which caters to the welfare of Nigerian employees in the event of work-related\naccidents and injuries. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The National Assembly on 29th November 2022, received an Executive bill for the establishment of a National Social Investment Programme, from President Muhammadu Buhari. It is a bill for an Act to provide a legal and institutional framework for the establishment and management of a National Social Investment Programme in Nigeria. The Federal Ministry of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3015,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3025"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3036,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3025\/revisions\/3036"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}