Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouq, yesterday, revealed that the Federal Government has engaged a total of 4,452 independent monitors to observe the implementation of its National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP) nationwide. She said that the aim was to ensure that the Federal Government’s programmes were implemented to the letter across the country. This is even as she warned the independent monitors against harassing beneficiaries and contractors of the programmes.
Farouq spoke in Awka, Anambra State capital when she flagged off of the Training/Onboarding Exercise for Stream 2 Independent Monitors of the NSIP on Thursday.
“Any independent monitor found intimidating or harassing a beneficiary will be taken off the programme.
“Be informed that we have officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Department of State Services working with us on this programme and those found culpable will be handed over to the relevant authorities”, she warned.
The minister, represented by the Director of Planning, Research and Statistics, Mr Ralph Obi, disclosed that 31 new independent monitors were engaged in addition to 91 old monitors, bringing the total number so far monitoring the programme in the state to 122. She listed the programmes as National Home Grown School Feeding Programme, Government Enterprise Empowerment Programme, N-Power and Conditional Cash Transfer, explaining, however, that the job of the independent monitors was to monitor the programmes in communities, market clusters and schools.