For the 2021 fiscal year, the Nigerian government, under the ministry of humanitarian affairs, has proposed to spend ₦400 billion on its Social Investment Programmes (NSIP) such as NPower.
This comprises a total recurrent expenditure of ₦350 billion and ₦50 billion for capital spendings, according to a document submitted to the National Assembly by its joint committees on poverty alleviation.
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The document showed that while the proposed recurrent expenditure for next year would remain unchanged, the estimate for personnel cost was increased by 2.31 per cent, from ₦166.3 billion in 2020 to ₦170.1 billion in 2021.
This increase is “because of (an) increase in the number of NPOWER (NTEACH Hub) beneficiaries from 400,000 to 450,000,” the document said.
More than half of the total proposal for recurrent expenditure (that is 52.6 per cent) would be used for the implementation of programme components of the Job Creation Unit (JCU), including N-Power and Innovation Hubs.
This means that NPOWER and its affiliate sub-programmes on job creation for the enrolment of 450,000 N-Power volunteers and training, tooling and mentoring of 54,000 non-graduate beneficiaries would cost about ₦200.3 billion.
Also, the ministry penned ₦145 billion for the Home-Grown School Feeding (NHGSFP), which is to feed 9.86 million children, de-worm 7 million children and recount the pupils.
Likewise, ₦35.8 billion has been billed to be expended on the
Government Enterprise and Empowerment Program (GEEP) – comprising marketmoni, tradermoni and farmermoni – for recurrent costs and capital spendings, which includes loan funds and the “programme’s setup and technology.”
The GEEP offers soft loans to local farmers and traders, and next year, a total of 1.66 million beneficiaries are intended to be captured in the programme’s net.
