COV/USMAN MZ, JIGAWA
Federal Government says over 4,440 youths are trained under the National social Investment programme across the country from February to April 2021.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouk disclosed this at the flagging off ceremony for the distribution of engagement letters and tablets to trained Independent monitors held at Manpower Development Institute Dutse, the jigawa state capital.
Represented by the Assistant Director ICT of the ministry, Alhaji Aminu Tukur Bello explained that out of the 5,000 Independent Monitors, 4,452 were trained across the country.
According to her, the devices are equipped with an application that will be used to report on monitoring activities of the trained Independent Monitors.
Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouk said the application, called the Social Investment Management Information System SIMIS, was mobile and web-based application designed for Monitoring the National Social Investment Programme.
She explained that by using the application, the Ministry sees real-time reports of activities of the Independent Monitors on the Field.
The Minister said, under the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme, “they can see where feeding had taken place and where there was no feeding happening, noting that, this will provide greater visibility to the Ministry and equip them with information to follow up with implementation happening at the state level”.
She added that the application allows the Ministry to have visibility up to the local government level and would guide them at the Federal Level to ensure that, the programmes were working in line with their objectives.
Hajiya Sadiya said it will also task the states to ensure they meet up with their deliverables towards effective implementation of the programme.
She further explained that the Independent Monitors will be paid a monthly stipend of N30,000 and they must meet up to 80% of their deliverables monthly to be eligible for their stipend.
According to her, the programme will help the Humanitarian Ministry deliver on its mandate and contribute to President Buhari’s vision of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of Poverty.
Earlier, the jigawa state coordinator of the SIP programme, Mallam Bala Usman Chamo charged the independent monitors to be deligent in the discharge of their duties.
He explained that the programme had four components Npower, GEEP National Home has grown school feeding programme and conditional cash transfer.
It could be recalled that, the national social Investment programme SIP, was being created by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2016 with the mandate of lifting citizens out of poverty through several Social Interventions which include N-POWER, National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme, Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme.