Based on her handling of the social investment portfolio in her ministry in the last one year, it is safe to say that Sadiya Farouq failed considerably ...
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq. [PHOTO CREDIT: Official Facebook page of the ministry]When President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in for a second term last May, he hinted at plans to strengthen his administration’s response to surging poverty and various humanitarian crises afflicting the country.
For instance, during the COVID-19 induced lockdown, Ms Farouq personally monitored the distribution of food items and cash to beneficiaries who were majorly internally displaced persons and other vulnerable Nigerians to cushion the pernicious impacts of the pandemic on them. The scheme was domiciled in the office of the Vice president, Yemi Osinbanjo during Mr Buhari’s first term in office. It has since been moved to the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry at the inception of the President’s second term in office
Sources at the presidency informed this newspaper that the minister was taking her time to study what the program really entailed; a move that slowed down the scheme with many of the beneficiaries calling her resignation, saying that the delay in monthly payments since she took over the control of the social programme had caused them untold hardship.
Although the minister admitted the hiccups in the payment, she explained that her ministry encountered issues with the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System which caused the delay in payment to the beneficiaries. However, there were reports that some members of the National Assembly fraudulently received slots of about 50,000 out of the 400,000 beneficiaries willing to partake in the scheme – from the minister, Ms Farouq.
Many beneficiaries who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES complained of hardship since she became head of the scheme. Also, nothing substantial has been heard for the exit package for the outgoing beneficiaries, aside from media promises.As earlier stated, there was no school feeding in the first few months after the minister assumed duty.
Ms Farouq also announced that the social grant could only reach 25 per cent out of the over three million poor Nigerian captured in the Federal Government World Bank assisted National Social Register amid the economic hardship caused by COVID-19. ”There’s essentially no real way to track what is said to be disbursed/spent on these schemes to actual recipients and therefore audit to say exactly how much is spent was really spent.”
”So when you withdraw this money and pay by hand you make it open for corruption, this is also contradictory to the federal government cashless policy,” he said.
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