FG Approves N400 Billion For Conditional Cash Transfer, Farmer Money, Others

The Federal Government has approved the sum of N400 billion under the National Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (NPRGS), which covers certain welfare schemes including the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), Conditional Cash Transfer, Farmer Money, and Market Money.

The approval for 2022 was disclosed by Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State who spoke with State House correspondents after a meeting of the National Steering Committee of NPRGS on Thursday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The Governor said the meeting was a steering committee of the Presidential Poverty and Growth Strategy, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.

What Governor Sule is saying

President Muhammadu Buhari had in 2021, inaugurated NPRGS to be chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. Sule said the meeting was to review the implementation of what was approved in the budget.

According to Sule, “It is a meeting of the steering committee of the Presidential Poverty and Growth Strategy.

“The last meeting we had, the fourth meeting, we were able to set up various working groups that are going to prepare the total budget that was required.

”So, they were able to do that and then we were able to obtain also the president’s approval.

”Based on the president’s approval and availability in the budget, this meeting that we had was actually just to go through the implementation of whatever has been approved, both in the budget and by the president.”

The governor listed some of the programmes through which the Federal Government was implementing the NPRGS.

He said, “Looking at what is available in the budget this year, which is roughly N400 billion, the Humanitarian Ministry is going to take N350 billion for the expansion of the various programmes like Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme(GEEP), Conditional Cash Transfer, Farmer Money, Market Money and the rest of that.”

He stated that there is also another N50 billion that is going to be reserved for various other programmes like the Ministry of Agriculture for rural roads, and electricity in terms of solar.

What you should know

• last year that President Muhammadu Buhari revealed that Nigeria would need investments valued at N348.1 trillion to fully achieve its expectation in the National Development Plan (NDP) 2021-2025, the NDP will also replace the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), 2017- 2020, which expired in December 2020.
• He said the Plan would also set the ball rolling for the FG’s plan to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years, under the National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy (NPRGS), disclosing that out of the N348.1 trillion needed to push the Plan, the government is expected to provide N49.7 trillion or 14.3%, while the private sector would provide the balance of N298.3 trillion or 85.7%.