NSIP: MINISTRY TRAINS 2ND BATCH OF INDEPENDENT MONITORS IN ENUGU

REPORTER: CHUKWUMA EZEOGU

Thirty-Five independent monitors have been trained by the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development to monitor the programmes of the ministry in Enugu State.

The Programmes are the N-Power, National Home Grown School Feeding, Conditional Cash Transfer (CC) and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Program, GEEP.

The Minister, Hajia Umar Farouq, in a message to the onboarding and training exercise for the stream two independent monitors of the National Social Investment Programme, appealed to the participants to deploy best practices in carrying out the task.

The Minister, represented by her Special Assistant on Administration, Mr. Ngene Kingsley Bashir, said that the National Social Investment Programme, is a Federal Government Initiative created by the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to lift poor Nigerian citizens out of poverty.

According to the Minister, the initiative, which would leverage on some social intervention programmes like the N-Power programme, National Home grown school feeding programme, Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme, GEEP and Conditional Cash Transfer programme, was to create jobs for the teeming youths and the most vulnerable Nigerian citizens.

The Minister said that the mandate of the independent monitors were to supervise the National Social Investment Programme in communities, school, house holds and market clusters.

She said that the independent monitors, spread across the seventeen local government areas of Enugu State would ensure that the aim of the programme was achieved.

The Enugu State Focal Person, National Social Investment Program, Dr. Innocent Ogbonna, identified lack of focal persons involvement at the planning stages of the programme as one of the challenges that bedeviled the initiative.

He said that there was the need for synergy at the initial stage of the programme to address some peculiar needs of states before the programme launch.

Two independent monitors, Mrs. Chibota Onyema and Mr. Collins Chukwuemeka, express their satisfaction with the exercise and affirmed their readiness to discharge their duty with diligence.

Each of the independent monitors was issued engagement letter and an android tablet, which was a major tool needed for the task.

EDITED BY CHUKWUBUIKE MADU