Interrogating nexus between FG’s social investment programmes, rising poverty

The move by the Federal Government to secure an $800 million World Bank facility to fund palliative programmes for 10 million households, which translates, to about 50 million Nigerians is raising concerns among stakeholders.

The fund, according to the Federal Government, is the first tranche of the palliatives ahead of fuel subsidy removal, which is to be disbursed through cash transfers to 50 million vulnerable Nigerians.

The move, stakeholders said, necessitates the need to critically examine the impact of the Federal Government’s social investment programmes amid the high level of poverty in the country since 2015 when the Buhari administration came to power.

They argued that considering the socio-economic challenges the country is battling with, which range from a poor standard of living, high poverty and crime rate, and increasing unemployment rate, sharing money in form of palliatives was not sustainable and may induce corruption.

They said the welfare of the masses or even the vulnerable could not be resolved by mere cash transfers, except an all-inclusive basic infrastructure and amenities that could better the lives of the citizens, which automatically would create wealth should be focused on.

The stakeholders maintained that what the country requires at this time is the investment needed to create jobs and lift people out of poverty. Already, statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) say the country of over 200 million citizens is home to about 133 million multi-dimensionally poor people.

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, who had disclosed some of the measures the Federal Government was taking to cushion the challenges ahead of fuel subsidy removal on the citizens, said: “The $800 million is for scale-up of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) at the World Bank.

“The cash transfers are to the most vulnerable in our society that have now been registered in a national social register. Today, that register has a list of 10 million households. 10 million households are equivalent to about 50 million Nigerians.”

However, the effective implementation of different interventions by the Federal Government to uplift millions of abandoned Nigerians in every part of the country has been queried by experts.

Earlier in the year, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, disclosed that the ministry invested over N1.358 trillion in various programmes under its NSIP since 2016 .

Farouq, who spoke while giving the scorecard series of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, said over 15 million lives have been impacted, since the inception of the ministry, while the number of people below the poverty line has dropped since the current government assumed power .

On how impactful the programme has been to over 80 million Nigerians, she said: “I will say that it was impactful to those we have been able to reach. The number was quite huge, amid limited resources at our disposal. We could only do our best. We wish we could make everyone comfortable in this country, but that is not very possible.”

However, experts have said that spending borrowed funds on palliatives that are very poorly targeted was not a good poverty reduction strategy and has no measurable impact.

A Public Affairs Analyst, Jide Ojo, said ab initio, there was no monitoring and evaluation framework, which is a major gap impairing the ability to embark on impact measurement. He insisted that the scheme may have been impactful in some ways but not recorded feasible impacts .

According to him, the idea behind it is very noble but the issues of corrupt practices in the implementation are where the problem lies, as government needs to review it.

“There should be a strategic plan for NSIP, can we see the report card of what has been done with the enormity of resources that have been invested in that sector? Can we have a better accountability and transparency framework that will convince an average Nigerian that this is not money down the drain?

“In all of these, if we can do a holistic review, let’s have a forensic audit of the fund. It is long overdue for a forensic audit on NSIP. Let’s now see whether that audit will justify that the humongous sum of money is judiciously spent. We need to separate appropriation from the amount released and amount spent, review all of these to achieve a measurable impact,” he said.

Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader at PwC, Taiwo Oyedele, who said the programme has not been impactful as intended, faulted the lack of reliable data to identify those who are most in need of the intervention, as well as a robust process for the disbursement and subsequent management of the funds.

Among other huge challenges, which he said had hindered its effectiveness was the design and the extent of evidence utilised to determine its viability. Given the country’s limited resources and rising debt profile, he said the government needed to carry out an objective review of the programme and redirect the funds towards more productive initiatives.

He suggested collaboration with the private sector and training institutes to provide vocational training for youths and provision of funding to viable small businesses as a better chance of generating jobs sustainably. He added that policy reform was the most impactful intervention to stimulate economic growth and create jobs in the long run.

In his submission, the President, the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN), Tommy Okon, said the programme was cash-consuming and a waste of resources.

Noting that the majority of the poor and the poorest have not been touched, he said what the government was doing in that regard was just social and traditional media hype.

On his take, he asked that government should come up with a deliberate policy on social security that would make every Nigerian have social security number. He said the method will be able to determine those who are gainfully employed and those who are not, as well as will also determine those who would be needed to be catered for within the social safety nets.

He said: “What government is doing now is just paying lip service to poverty and encouraging corruption. The reason is that Nigeria has a challenge of data, so how do you determine those who are poor and those whom the safety net has covered?

“Government should come up with a deliberate policy that would make it compulsory that every Nigerian would have a social security number. They should work with the national Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to know Nigerians that would be enrolled and to know if they are gainfully employed, students or poorest of the poor.”

Similarly, an Economist and Chief Executive Officer, the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), Dr. Muda Yusuf, said the recurring high budgetary allocations to social investment programmes needed to be reviewed in light of the competing demands for the limited resources of the government.

Stating that poor funding had been a recurring challenge for the security agencies, he stressed that the critical issue to address was better funding for the military and other security agencies. He assured that if the government were able to guarantee security, the need for social investment programmes, in their current form, would be minimal.

What is paramount, Yusuf said, was the restoration of the economies of affected communities, the restoration of livelihoods and economic lives of the affected citizens

“We should not be committing more resources to the management of symptoms to the detriment of fixing the fundamentals. We need to guarantee security, provide infrastructure, tackle climate change, develop human capital and support Micro, small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

“The current intervention model of handouts or school feeding does not offer a sustainable solution. It is therefore important to review budgetary allocations to properly reflect these priorities and ensure better outcomes. It is also important to harmonise the various interventions by other agencies of government around youth unemployment, microcredit schemes and other poverty reduction programmes,” he said.