– Beneficiaries to get direct payment into their accounts
– Payment to start after National Assembly approves budget
– Primary school pupils to also get free meal a day
Payment of the N5,000 monthly stipend will commence after the approval of the 2016 Budget by the National Assembly.
Beneficiaries of the N5000 monthly stipend will get it directly in their accounts without a second or third party interference.
This much was revealed by Laolu Akande, the senior special assistant to the vice president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, over the weekend.
According to Vanguard, the presidency revealed that the payment would commence once the budget is approved by the National Assembly.
It also stated that the one meal per day promise to school pupils in some selected states would also commence after the approval by the National Assembly, as part of its N500 billion social welfare programme.
The statement revealed further that N60 billion would be directly transferred to the one million extremely poor Nigerians in accordance to President Muhammadu Buhari’s vision of building human capital.
500,000 direct jobs, which will see unemployed graduates being trained and deployed as volunteer teachers in their communities, will also be implemented by the presidency as well as the training of 370,000 non-graduates youths in different skills and vocational programmes.
The statement read: “The recruitment of beneficiaries into the volunteer teaching jobs and the skill acquisition training scheme for non-graduates would be done on state basis, including the FCT and opened to all Nigerians of different shades.”
In the same vein, a micro credit scheme where one million Nigerians, mostly small scale traders, artisans and market women, would get a one-time soft loan of N60,000 each through the Bank of Industry, is being introduced as well as the free education plan for students of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, STEM, where government will pay tuition for 100,000 students.
Akande disclosed further that at no time in the nation’s budgetary history had the federal government made a specific vote of such volume for social welfare, adding:“Even economic historians now say that not only is the half a trillion Naira vote unprecedented, but it is also the greatest service ever done to the Nigerian state and people by any federal government administration.
“The President’s vision is to increase investments in human capital to guarantee security for all, employment and improved well-being of the people.”
Akande’s statement also indicated that monthly stipend policy, otherwise called the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) would be paid directly to the beneficiaries through a payment system that is being worked out.
The World Bank and the Bill Gates Foundation were reportedly collaborating with the presidency to develop an efficient payment system.
This latest development is sure to bring smiles to the face of the unemployed Nigerian youths who have been keen on the promises made by the All Progressives Congress (APC) led administration during its pre-2015 presidential election campaign.
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