The Federal Government on Tuesday said that about 10.07 million Nigerians had been socio-economically reached through the ongoing Social Investment Programmes (SIP) component of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).
Giving this figure at a media briefing held in his ministry on the activities lined up for the upcoming 24th Nigerian Economic Summit (NES), the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Sen. Udoma Udo Udoma, said that the achievement was one of the key priorities of the ERGP of investing in the people.
Specifically, the minister hinted that the government had provided for 8.96 million school children under the home grown School Feeding Programme while over 297,000 poor and vulnerable Nigerians had been supported with cash transfer of N5,000 so far.
In addition, he explained that government had disbursed successfully more than 308,000 loans of N50,000 under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) and 200,000 young unemployed graduates empowered through the N-Power scheme , while over 308,000 had been selected for consideration for the second batch.
In his opening remarks, the chairman and CEO of NESG, Mr. Laoye Jaiyeola, explained that the summit scheduled to hold next month with the theme ‘Poverty to Prosperity: Making Governance & Institutions Work’, would focus on using governance to lift Nigerians out of poverty.
He assured that the NES would continue to be rallying point for both public and private sectors in their collective efforts to proffer solutions to various economic challenges plaguing the country.
