Time to Review the SIP

Developments at the Social Investment Programme (SIP) have once again brought into focus the operations of the programme and its impact on those targeted to benefit from it. Last week, during a meeting with President Buhari to discuss on issues pertaining to the COVID-19 and the palliative measures to cushion the effects of the on-going […]

Developments at the Social Investment Programme (SIP) have once again brought into focus the operations of the programme and its impact on those targeted to benefit from it.

Last week, during a meeting with President Buhari to discuss on issues pertaining to the COVID-19 and the palliative measures to cushion the effects of the on-going lockdown on the vulnerable in society, Senate President Ahmed Lawan and Speaker, House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, had cause to speak on the implementation of the SIP. Lawan stated that ‘’ This is a very important programme that is meant to help poor and vulnerable Nigerians and we believe having implemented it for four years or more, we should be reviewing to evaluate the efficacy/efficiency with which we have been implementing the programme. I believe that we also need to legislate on how to fight poverty in Nigeria because this is one issue that has been there for quite some time and therefore there is need for us to have a very clear and well spelt out processes and procedures on how to tackle poverty’’.

The Senate President was responding to widespread reports detailing complaints on how palliatives meant for the poor and vulnerable during the COVID-19 lockdown has hardly reached them. Even before the coming of the COVID-19, there had been complaints about the limited reach of the programme to the targeted groups.

We recall that no less a personality than the First Lady, Hajiya Aisha Buhari, had cause to publicly condemn what she said was the lack of appreciable impact of the programme on the supposed beneficiaries in the country especially in her native Adamawa state.

But the woman at the centre of it all, Mrs. Maryam Uwais, the Special Adviser to President Buhari on Social Investment Programme issued a defence of the programme.

She claimed that of the sum of over N2 trillion naira purported to have been appropriated to the programme since inception, only N619 billion was released. This represented just about 34% of the total appropriation from the National Assembly to date. In a yearly breakdown of the release of the funds, she stated that in 2016 when the programme first started 14.3% was released, 35% in 2017, 43.5% in 2018, and 57.8% as of September 2019.

Mrs Uwais also stated that from 2017 to 2020, the sum of N100 billion was appropriated from the SIP funds to the National Housing Fund (NHF), which was domiciled with the Federal Ministry of Finance. For emphasis, she stated that payments were made to over 13 million beneficiaries who can be verified through their Bank Verification Numbers, (BVN) or through their unique numbers generated by the National Social Register.

Although Mrs. Uwais’ explanation cannot be faulted, it is however necessary to consider the merit of the observations made on the programme by stakeholders. It must be noted that the SIP is primarily a political initiative of the present administration to achieve political objectives. Consequently, the SIP contains both a technocratic element being driven by Mrs. Uwais and a political component, which the institutions that have statutory oversight responsibilities over it must also play.

This presupposes a template of understanding and synergy between the two in order to run the programme. At present, it appears from the statements credited to the Senate President and various others and the posture of Mrs. Uwais, that there is a disconnect between the technocratic and political objectives of the programme.

All things considered, we believe that thus far, it should be expected that in the normal course of things after running for four years, the SIP like any other programme, should necessarily be subject to a review.

Such a review should be holistic for the purpose of taking a look at the journey so far made, lessons learnt and the challenges encountered for greater efficiency and delivery in line with emerging realities and developments.