CACOVID spends N43bn on interventions, to rebuild 44 police stations

Co-chairman of the Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID) and Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele has said has spent N43 billion on various interventions to cushion the effects of the pandemic.

He also said CACOVID will rehabilitate all 44 police stations destroyed in the recent protests. Emefiele also said CACOVID has committed to providing over N100bn to procure equipment for the Nigerian Police Force in two years to modernise it.

The CBN governor disclosed this in Lagos yesterday while giving an account of the funds raised by the private sector coalition.

He said there was support from over 200 well-meaning Nigerians and corporate organisations, amounting to N39.6bn. However, CACOVID has so far spent N43.3bn for medical equipment, supplies, and food palliatives for the vulnerable.

According to the breakdown, N4.2bn was spent on building isolation centres while medical equipment such as PCR test kits for suspected cases of COVID-19 among others were procured for N9bn.

CACOVID provided food items as palliatives to 1.7 million households and about 8m Nigerians for N28.7bn.

He further said CACOVID will provide technical and vocational education to over 4m youths in five years.

“Over N150bn is expected to be deployed towards the setup and implementation of the youth development programme, which will be available at select training centres across the country.”

On the looming second wave of COVID-19, Emefiele said: “We will see what can be done to increase some more support in case there is another restriction, not an entire lockdown that we had for eight weeks.

President, Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote at the event, said: “The intervention for rebuilding the police stations became necessary because we can never get investors in an environment that is not conducive for business.

“The private sector will procure what the police stations will need with the N100bn.

Dangote said the 4m youths will be empowered through a N25bn employment programme.

“As soon as we kick start the training for our Nigerian youths which is free then they have a guarantee that there will be jobs for them. We have about 30,000 workers at our refinery, which are looking at increasing it to 50,000 workers. 25 to 28 per cent will be foreigners but the rest will be Nigerian.

Speaking further on the N100bn for the police, he said: “We will not be giving the N100bn in cash. With the N100bn, we are looking at importing vehicles and ammunition that were destroyed during the protest. We can never get investors to come to an environment that is not conducive for business and so we need to make sure that we put things right.”