The House of Representatives at its plenary on Wednesday, 14 June 2017 mandated its Committees on Labor, Employment and Productivity and Poverty Alleviation to liaise with the Agency in charge of the Social Investment Programmes (SIP) to ensure programs are implemented in all federal constituencies in the country.

Moving the motion, Hon. Olabode Ayorinde (APC:Ondo) underscored the importance of the Federal Government’s social intervention efforts aimed at improving Nigeria’s economy and reducing unemployment.

He also enumerated that the SIP contained four elements, which are as follows;

• The Homegrown School Feeding Programme targeting 5.5 million primary school pupils in all the States of the Federation
• The Job Creation Programme aimed at employing 500,000 graduates for deployment in communities to work as teachers, health support officers and agricultural officers for a stipend of N30, 000.
• The condition cash transfer (CCT) of N5, 000 monthly to extremely poor and vulnerable persons in the society, targeted at one million (1,000,000) recipients for two years
• The Enterprises Promotion Programme which is a loan facility of between, 000 to N100, 000 to 1.66 million people

However he noted that despite the Federal Government’s claim of having spent forty-one billion seven hundred fourteen million two hundred ninety-three thousand (N41, 714,293,000) across the thirty six (36) states and the Federal Capital Territory implementing different aspects of the four SIPs and serving 25 million meals under the national homegrown school feeding programme as at April 2017, no credible statistics existed on the implementation of each element of the SIP. For instance, he mentioned that the Government’s statistics was too generalized as the school-feeding programme covered only 7 states of the federation.

The House also urged the Federal Government to implement one element of the SIP at a time and ensure that each element implemented covers all thirty six (36) states in spirit of fairness, equity and justice.