Projects carried out under the Federal Government’s National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy for the year 2022 have an impact on no less than 2 million poor Nigerians, Entrepreneurng Report.
The NPRGS Steering Committee convened at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, according to a statement made on Thursday by Laolu Akande, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Office of the Vice President.
According to Akande, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo-hosted meeting’s progress report also showed that the Agriculture for Jobs Plan had an impact on 1.6 million smallholder farmers.
“In addition, 13,000 adolescents have received training through Technical and Vocational Education and Training programs in six states, including Lagos, Ogun, Enugu, Gombe, Kaduna, and Nasarawa. Meanwhile, plans are being made to offer 2000 recipients in Edo State the same type of training.”
Equally, more than 8,000 Nigerians were employed in the construction of rural roads under the Rural Roads initiative, which created 40 rural roads in 120 localities around the nation, totaling about 57.3 km.
According to the report given by Clem Agba, Minister of State for the Budget and National Planning, with the release of N50 billion, programs that had reached 100 percent completion included the Construction of Rural Roads and the Agriculture for Food and Jobs Plan, among others.
“Too far, 9,527 vulnerable Nigerians have been directly employed through the implementation of the program, bringing the total number of direct beneficiaries of the executed programs to 1.8 million.”
In addition, the committee recommended spending N250 billion at the meeting to carry out projects in 2023.
According to Akande, the research revealed that among the projects with a one-year execution deadline under the NPRGS were plans to build 100,000 homes for low-income people, which would, directly and indirectly, support 1 million jobs.
He also mentioned the increase of energy availability by supplying rural areas with 1,200 solar street lights and six mini-grids for highly productive, high-capacity farming as part of the Solar Naija Program.
“The Rural Roads program, which seeks to connect around 750 rural markets, will result in the creation of 4.5 million direct and indirect jobs.”
For the 2023 wet season, the Agriculture for Jobs Plan would provide N9 billion in support to more than 1.6 million disadvantaged smallholder farmers.
The National Social Register would be expanded to include 3 million more homes, he said.
Gov. Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State, who is also Co-Chair of the Committee’s Technical Working Group, talked with State House reporters following the meeting.
Sule stated that despite implementation falling short of expectations, efforts were being made to cover all 15 of the areas that had been set as targets.
He explained that the purpose of the meeting was to examine the implementation, provide an update on the projects’ spending to date, and approve projects for the same plan for 2023.
In conclusion, according to information we got from the Technical Working Group’s co-chair, almost N50 billion has already been spent. So far, the performance hasn’t lived up to our expectations. However, almost all of the 15 areas targeted are being implemented in some fashion.
Source: Punch
