The Federal Government has restated its commitment to spend N500 billion on the implementation of its ongoing wealth creation and poverty alleviation programmes nationwide.
The Vice-President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, made the pledge during the question and answer session of the 58th Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) with the theme ‘Transition, Transformation and Sustainable Institutions’ held Tuesday in Abuja.
Osinbajo explained that the planned commitment of such a huge financial outlay to the people-oriented programmes and activities, particularly the National Social Investment Programmes, was aimed at improving productive capacity and alleviating poverty of the poor in the country.
He clarified: “We started off in 2016 looking at a budget that was crafted differently; all along if you look at the way we have approached economic policies, it has always been the case of top-down approach.
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“So, we look at how to improve industry; how to improve manufacturing; we look at how to give loans to Micro Small and Medium Enterprises.
“The approach we adopted in 2016 was first to create a safety net; so for the first time, we put in the budget a line for what is called NSIP; that is N500 billion for NSIP and that is the largest of its kind in the history of the country.
“The N500 billion covers conditional cash transfer to the poorest; one million of the poorest; we work with the World Bank for special coverage to determine the beneficiaries”, the Vice President added.
Osinbajo pointed out that the initial plan of the government to five million poor people nationwide for the poverty alleviation programmes was vitiated by scare resources, promising that the ongoing implementation of the various programmes will be monitored to ensure the realization of their objectives.
