By Chimezie Godfrey
The Humanitarian Affairs Ministry has commenced the engagement of stakeholders on provisions of the Social Investment Programmes(NSIP) Establishment Bill aimed at stepping down sensitization to the grassroots.
Speaking during a Stakeholder Consultative Workshop on the Sensitization of
the National Social Investment Programmes (Establishment) Bill held on Wednesday in Abuja, the Ministry’s Director of Legal Services, Barrister Garba Haganawega noted that the N-SIP Bill will provide a legal framework for the investment programme to be sustained.
Garba who decried the habit of old government programmes being shelved by successive governments, assured that this time around with the legal framework in the act, the N-SIP will be sustained.
He said,”We are here to sensitize the public, about the NSIP Bill, that is the National Social Investment Program. And the objective of this bill is to provide a legal framework for the bill, and for this investment program to be sustained.
“You know, we are in the habit of any government coming in and shelving the old government’s program, but this time around if there is a legal framework in an act that established that program, you see, coming to amend it is a tedious one, so it will not be that so easy to just shelve it away. So, it can be sustained.
“And then one thing is that, in that bill, there is a financial provision that is another aspect of funding, because funding has always been a problem in the government. So, here, a funding mechanism is provided in it. So we hope that with this provision, I think the program will be sustained.”
Haganawega disclosed that the bill has reached an advanced stage, adding that the House of Representatives has passed it and that it is now left with the Senate to act on it.
He therefore said that the bill will address various socio-economic challenges bedeviling the country.
“The bill tends to address the problems of different groups, and categories, it deals with us, women, farmers, etc, so, it covers a wide range of the populace. And so its impact would go a long way in reducing poverty. You know, the real aim and the target is poverty reduction,” he said.
Also, speaking, the National Resource Person, NSIP, Engr. Umar Bindir, noted that poverty is a big problem in Nigeria and that there is need for a well structured program that will tackle it.
Bindir stressed that the NSIP has been evolved to serve as the tool to sustain the fight against poverty in Nigeria.
“Well, you see, first of all, you understand that poverty is really a big problem in Nigeria and therefore the need to have a very serious and effective well structured program to fight poverty or non stop cannot be overemphasized.
“NSIP has been evolved to actually serve as that tool to just sustain the fight against poverty. Two, if this is true, and it is true because we have seen over the last four or five years, the benefits of implementing NSIP, the way it is structured, the process for institutionalizing this is that you have a law and you have the law to say that this is a structure that is well understood by Nigerians and Nigerians have resolved through their own representation in the National Assembly to sustain the fight of poverty until we literally kill it.
“So this bill is about the structure of the NSIP the operational modalities of the NSIPP, the funding methodologies of the NSIPP, the reporting lines of the NSIPP impact measurements of the NSIP and everything to do with the NSIP with the ultimate target of ensuring that we fight poverty in our country,” he said.
Other stakeholders who were part of the workshop include the representatives of the National Orientation Agency, NOA, Federal Ministry of Justice, among others.
