By Omoniyi Salaudeen
The rollout of the palliatives announced by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to mitigate the effects of the removal of fuel subsidy on the vulnerable poor in the country seems to be taking forever amid the rising cost of living.
As available reports show, about four million Nigerians have been pushed into poverty in the last six months. And the figure is likely to keep rising because of the weakness of safety nets as well as over-stretching of the alternative social platforms, including churches and mosques that are used to help to alleviate poverty. Traditionally, religious organisations have always played a crucial role in poverty alleviation. But due to the hardship of the economy and the rising level of despondency, these groups are increasingly getting overstretched and unable to cope with the pressure coming from the underprivileged.
Part of the measures adopted by the Federal Government to ameliorate the hardship occasioned by the subsidy removal is the planned disbursement of N8,000 monthly to 12 million vulnerable households.
In the wake of his announcement of the subsidy removal, President Tinubu had asked the National Assembly to approve $800 million loans from the World Bank to ameliorate the hardship induced by the removal through the disbursement of N8,000 to 12 million households. In addition to that, another N500 million has also been appropriated in an amendment to the 2022 supplementary budget to mitigate the hardship of the subsidy removal.
While some people believe that the intervention will go a long way to cushioning the effect of the subsidy removal on those at the lowest rung of the ladder, many pundits have criticized the amount for being grossly inadequate.
In response to the criticism, President Tinubu has asked for an immediate review of the conditional cash transfer to be in tune with the current reality of the economy. While Nigerians are waiting anxiously for the outcome of the review, the National Economic Council (NEC) recently met at the Presidential Villa where the state governors resolved to do away with the social register used by the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari to implement his conditional cash transfer. According to them, the social register has integrity issues and, therefore, could not be used to distribute cash transfers to vulnerable Nigerians.
Consequently, the governors resolved to take charge of the policy for proper and effective implementation. In that collective resolution, they promised to provide for arrears of pensions, increase the minimum wage for workers and ensure cash transfers to public servants. This is even as the Federal Government has announced the distribution of 250,000 metric tons of grains to cushion the effect of the subsidy removal.
Here comes the issue of trust. Trust is an essential social capital that governs the relationship between the government and the governed. At present, there is a huge deficit of trust for governments at all levels because of a lack of transparency and accountability in the conduct of public affairs.
Therefore, as the governors are angling to take over the disbursement of the conditional cash transfer, the issue that readily agitates the minds of Nigerians is the experience of COVID-19 when most state governments locked up palliatives in their warehouses while they watched the poor groan in pain for lack of food.
The big question being asked is: Can the governors be relied upon for the distribution of the palliatives this time around in a way that the targeted groups will not be short-changed in favour of their party members? How many states can boast of a comprehensive and reliable database to be used for the distribution of palliatives? How will they do it differently and more efficiently? What measures should they put in place for the tracking of the disbursement to regain public trust and confidence that had been found to be missing in the previous administration?
The National Coordinator of the National Social Safety Nets Coordinating Office, Dr Iorwa Apera, querying the argument of the governors about the integrity of the social register developed under his supervision during the last administration on Arise Television interview monitored by Sunday Sun, insisted that jettisoning the document was a wrong way to go.
He said: “The registers were designed by the state ministries of planning through the state coordinating units established in every state. In every local government of the federation, you also have a community-based targeting team that is domiciled in these local governments. The local governments are under the watchful eyes of the state governments and the governors. At the moment, the register stands at 15.7 million households made up of about 62 million individuals.
“So, it is by far the most comprehensive database of individuals in this country. It is operateable with the NIN, BVN, and other national databases. The Nigeria cash transfer that was operated under my watch made digital payments to the beneficiaries of the cash transfer. In each state of the federation, there is a state operational coordinating unit that manned the social register. MOU was signed with the state of the federation as a condition for participating in that programme. All the state apparatus are structured, reviewed by the state Attorneys-General before they signed.
“Let the governors go to their state coordinating units in the ministries of planning to interrogate their registers. I bet you, none of them will come back to question that register. This is the same social register used by the UNDP to pay beneficiaries. This register has been used by UNICEF. This register has been used by Kogi State for the flood victims. Are they now questioning the integrity of the United Nations which has used the register? Are they questioning the integrity of these international organisations? This register has been audited and certified by the World Bank. Are they questioning the integrity of the World Bank as well? That register has in itself 138 indicators for every household. It is the most comprehensive register in this country.
“Do we need to update it? The answer is yes because as you collect the data, it changes. To question the integrity of a document that has been certified by international organisations is not the way out? It is a huge national asset which could be used for national planning and budgeting. Fortunately, the data is tied to the World Bank loans with conditions. The World Bank has its monitoring system.”
Prof Bell Ihua, a management Consultant and Researcher, also lent credence to the credibility of the existing social register dumped by the governors, saying that it had been tested and authenticated by international development agencies. Asking questions on the same issue in the Arise interview programme, he said: “Incidentally, between 2018 and 2019, I was one of the evaluators of the national social investment programme. We conducted several evaluations of the programme and I can tell you that that register is authentic, apologies to the governors who think that the register should be put aside.
“I think the register was well conducted, but it needs to be verified and updated. As to the credibility, this is a register that the World Bank commended Nigeria for, saying it remains a credible building block for social intervention all over the world. It is a unique tool that other countries can understudy and emulate. So, I think what was achieved in the last administration needs to be built upon. UNDP has used the database, World Food Programme has used the database and recently Tony Elumelu Foundation has used the database. All manners of organisations have keyed into the database for one intervention or the other. I see no reason the intervention being proposed cannot make use of the database.
“We have seen in the time past when policies that were released with good intention, policies that were meant to bring succour to the struggling Nigerians ended up not achieving the purpose as we saw palliatives being stored in warehouses and could not get down to the citizens who were meant to access them.”
However, Chief Chekwas Okorie, lent his voice to the intervention of the governors, saying that it was a way of devolving power to the states. “What the governors have said does not necessarily have anything to do with the social register itself, but rather the transparency and credibility of the distribution of palliatives or cash transfer. It will be a path of honour for the governors not to jettison the register, but there is a need for updating so that they can add whatever they need to add to make it more accommodating,” he posited.
He also stressed the need to show transparency and accountability in the management and disbursement of the cash transfer.
“The governors hold the public the responsibility of making available the list of beneficiaries through the social media so that people can know those who benefitted from the disbursement. They need to do that to bring the kind of transparency the past administration did not bring to bear. If it is expensive to publish in the newspapers, they can put it on their website so that curious members of the public can log into it to see what has happened in their states. It is important that the public joins in assessing the distribution. If the first month goes well and second month goes well, then the pattern can follow. We have to start from the first month to see how this thing is distributed.
“I am one of those who are against over-centralization of everything concerning governance. So, if they are bringing it down to the states it is more like devolution than concentrating it in one office in Abuja and using their state branches to do whatever they want them to do,” he added.
While dismissing the arguments of those criticising the N8,000 palliative for being grossly inadequate, he said that the amount would make a difference in the economic wellbeing of the beneficiaries. “It will be a good thing if the government looks into its revenue situation and increase the money to a level it can manage. But I know as a result of my interaction at the lowest level of our society that in some places N8,000 or N10,000 will make a lot of difference because they don’t see money in buck in one month. So, it will make a lot of difference to those who are really vulnerable. They can use it to generate more money before the next month turns around.
“Beyond this immediate palliative, for me, the more sustainable social intervention is for the government to invest in the development of our infrastructure and ensuring that investment is done transparently by competent hands. I will also expect education in Nigeria to be heavily subsided. If we can reduce the burden on parents by giving the young ones especially at the level of primary and secondary education, that will be another form of subsidy that will contribute to the growth and development of our country. Education is one area where Nigeria is lacking and if we continue to move this way our development will be at a snail pace,” he submitted.