President Bola Tinubu has approved the establishment of a Special Presidential Panel on social investment programmes to be led by the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Wale Edun.
This is sequel to the President’s six-week suspension of the four programmes under the National Social Investment Programmes Agency (NSIPA).
Tinubu had, on Friday, suspended the NSIPA after the scandal (BETTAGATE) that rocked the programme and led to the suspension of the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Betta Edu.
The President directed the Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to conduct a thorough investigation into all aspects of the financial transactions involving the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, as well as one or more agencies thereunder.
The four programmes under NSIPA that were affected are N- Power Programme, Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme and Home Grown School Feeding Programme.
A statement issued by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Chief Ajuri Ngelale, yesterday, explained that the Special Presidential Panel is tasked with immediately undertaking a comprehensive review and audit of existing financial frameworks and policy guidelines of the social investment programmes with a view to implementing a total re-engineering of the financial architecture of the programmes with detailed modification to procedures guiding the programmes’ implementation moving forward.
The Special Presidential Panel is comprised of ministers representing strategic sectors and will ensure a multi-disciplinary approach to the reform effort.
On the panel are the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance who will serve as the Chairman, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy and the Minister of State for Youth.
“President Tinubu anticipates that this Special Presidential Panel will validate the confidence reposed in it by winning back all lost public confidence in these vital programmes over the years by ushering in a new era of operation based on open and accountable governance frameworks that will prove impervious to abuse and incompetence for the exclusive benefit of disadvantaged households across our nation,”the statement said.
While suspending the four programmes for six weeks, Tinubu had raised significant concerns regarding operational lapses and improprieties surrounding payments to the beneficiaries.
The President directed that within the period of the suspension, all NSIPA-related activities, including but not limited to all distributions, events, payments, collaborations and registrations, were frozen.
Edu, before her suspension, had been under fire after a memo surfaced wherein she asked Oluwatoyin Madein, Accountant-General of the Federation, to transfer N585 million to a private account.
The suspension came after the President had suspended Mrs Halima Shehu, the National Coordinator and chief executive of NSIPA.
This happened even as a former Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development, under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, Sadiya Umar-Farouq, was quizzed by the EFCC over an ongoing probe into the N37 billion allegedly laundered during her tenure in office.
Investigation revealed that the N37.1 billion was transferred from the Federal Government’s coffers and sent to 38 different bank accounts domiciled in five legacy commercial banks belonging a contractor.
Leave a Reply