NSIP receives N195 bn as at April 2018 – Minister

The National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) has as at April 2018 received a total disbursement of N195 billion for execution of its programmes.

The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, announced this while briefing State House Correspondents after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on Wednesday.

According to Ahmed the NSIP has up to 9.76 million beneficiaries cutting across the four programmes that have so far been deployed.

She stated that N-Power, the job creation scheme of the NSIP, had 200,000 graduate beneficiaries already that were deployed as teachers, agriculture extension workers as well as health extension workers.

She said that at the FEC approval was granted to project N-Power by moving to the N-Power Knowledge category.

“This is a category where non-graduates will be trained in skills and attached to companies where they will gain experience during apprenticeship.

“The categories are three: first is a group of 2,000 beneficiaries to be trained in software development, web development and will be equipped with devices.

“The essence of the training is to make them self-employable at the end of the training which will be for three months and there will be apprenticeship attachment after the training,’’ the minister said.

She stated that FEC also approved the supply of 3,000 devices to be used by staff of the National Cash Transfer office at the national, state, local and Ward levels, to register beneficiaries of the National Cash Transfer programme.

The devices would enable them to record the data, BVN and biometrics information of the CCT beneficiaries as well as their locations, the minister stated.

She also said that the devices would help them to capture information on payments that accrue to the beneficiaries and assist in tracking the performance of the National Cash Transfer programme.

Ahmed said that the third approval by FEC was for the training of 2,900 beneficiaries in building, construction and automobile related industries skills.

According to her, the training will cover electrical installations, carpentry welding and fabrication, plumbing and piping, fitting, paintings and decoration as well as automobile technology.

She stated that the training of the category would be for three months followed by apprenticeship attachment.

“At the end of the training they will be given tools related to the trade that they have been trained for so that they will become self-employed.

“The fourth category is the N-Power creative. It is meant to teach our youths how to convert their creative skills into technology to be able to do animation, graphic illustration, script writing and post production activities.

“There will be 1,500 beneficiaries and would be trained for a period of one month and will have two months apprenticeship in a relevant company and agency that has the capacity to train them.

“At the end of this training, each of this groups of beneficiaries will be going with the devices that will be provided to them.

“The devices will have uploaded special software specific to the skills they have acquired.

“Our target is that at the end of the day they will be self-employed and be able to employ more people,’’ she said.

The minister disclosed that while the government had not totally bridged the unemployment gap it was moving gradually to engage its youth adding that “the target for the N-Power knowledge is 25,000.’

She said the figure represented the first tranche to be deployed in N-Power knowledge as many more would come up.

She said that the N-Power beneficiaries were already being trained in some states while every state in the skills category would be trained.

She stated that the mode of selection was through online application while all the states got equitable treatment in the number of selected beneficiaries.