FG earmarks N146bn for school feeding, N-Power, others

The Federal Government has earmarked N66 billion to boost its three social welfare programmes, and another N80 billion for the interest-free loans, Special Adviser to the President, Mrs. Maryam Uwais, has said.

The welfare programmes are the Home Grown School Feeding (HGSF), N-Power, Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP).

Mrs. Uwais, who disclosed this to journalists in Calabar, the Cross River State capital, during a retreat at the Tinapa Business Resort Ltd, yesterday, said the N80bn would soon be appropriated for the loans and would be released by the National Social Investment Office in the Office of the Vice President to registered cooperative societies.

She said much of the money had not been released yet and that the Bank of Industry (BoI) had been asked to administer it for easy recovery of any due loan from defaulters.

The special adviser said they needed people, women and young people, including the unskilled and unemployed, to join cooperative organisations as they might not be able to attend to individuals.

On the school home grown feeding programme for school children, she said they were targeting 117,000 children, including out-of-school children, so that they could get them back to school or help them acquire skills.

She lauded the state on the programmes, saying six local government areas had benefitted from the CCT and that six more would soon be added.

Over 3,000 individuals have benefitted from the CCT in the state while 4,500 benefitted from interest-free loans.

The Deputy Governor of Cross River State, Prof. Ivara Esu, who represented Governor Ben Ayade, was grateful to the Federal Government for the release of the funds, saying it was difficult for the state to intervene in social welfare programmes.

He assured that the state would extend necessary cooperation to the federal agencies to enable their work become easier to reach out to their citizens.