From Sola Ojo, Kaduna
Kaduna State has a population of about 10 million people (2006 population projection at 2.3 annual growth). About 80 percent of that population earns its living from subsistence agriculture and other informal engagements.
Coincidentally, about 80 percent of that population is also said to be multidimensional poor, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Governor Uba Sani described these statistics as disturbing in his recent statements.
Generally, the multidimensional poverty indicators (MPIs) are built from 15 indicators grouped within four dimensions – health, education, living standards and work and shocks. A household is considered poor if they are deprived in more than one dimension, or the equivalent share (26%) of the weighted indicators measured in the MPI.
Commissioner for Planning and Budget Commission (PBC) in the state, Mr. Mukhtar Ahmed Monrovia, affirmed at a public function recently that the state now has 3.9 million poor and vulnerable residents captured in the social register.
The social register is a comprehensive list of poor and vulnerable individuals and households developed by the Federal Government through the State Operation Coordinating Units (SOCUs) with the support of the World Bank. It has been largely used to implement the National Social Safety Nets Programmes (NASSP) under the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.
However, there have been arguments on the credibility of the social register by both the state and non-state actors. The position of the civil society group on that argument was to improve on the register which uses about 215 datasets to arrive at poor and vulnerable households based on what the people at the grassroots defined as poverty. Some of the processes adopted to develop and mine data from the register are community-based targeting (CBT) and proxy means test (PMT)
For Kaduna, the Social Security Bill was one of the first bills signed into law by Governor Uba Sani. What this means is that the state will now add a face to its social protection programmes such as social insurance, social assistance and labour market intervention by having an office and an administrator to cater for poor and vulnerable persons.
On what the state is doing to address the issue, Monrovia said: “According to the National Social Register, Kaduna has about 3.9 million poor and vulnerable individuals. We are not discarding that register. We only said we would look at it and make it fit for Kaduna in line with the good intentions of Mr. Governor.
“Our respected governor has it as a part of his plans to uplift one million people from poverty in his first year in office, starting with 460,000 in the first tranche which means we have 20,000 poor and vulnerable target in each of the 23 local government areas of the State.
“The state government has also distributed rice as palliative to about 45,000 residents in the state. Another programme includes renovating roads, and bringing back the local train transport system within the state – from Zaria to Kaduna and Kafanchan.
“There is also a programme of buying buses and so many other things that will cushion the effect of the hardship people are going through.
“In the PBC, we understand that we have to plan for this which is why in the 2024 budget, by the grace of God, the government is going to have a package that will be targeted at poor and vulnerable residents.”
The relevant ministries, departments, and agencies that currently have budget lines for social protection/security programmes in the state are the Planning and Budget Commission (PBC), the Ministry of Human Services and Social Development, the Ministry of Agriculture, Kaduna State Residence Identity Management Agency, Kaduna State Pension Bureau, Kaduna State Contributory Health Management Authority and Kaduna State Bureau of Statistics (KADBS)
Director-General, Kaduna State Contributory Health Management Authority (KACHMA), Mr. Abubakar Hassan, expressed optimism that with the law in place and determination by the governor to address the issue of poverty, the state is on the right path to change the narrative.
“We look forward to the positive energy we need to bring forward in the next face of the Social Security Law which is implementation. The law does not take away the fact that as an institution of government managing the health insurance scheme, our role as far as what we have been doing is not eroded by the law.
“The law allows a system where all these structures become one so that we can harness the potentials that exist within other agencies that are going to be playing their roles within this new general space. At the end of the day, we hope to see a reduction in the number of poor and vulnerable individuals and households in Kaduna State”, he said.
Also commenting, Chairman, Kaduna Social Protection Accountability Coalition (KADSPAC), Ms. Jessica Bartholomew, said: “Now we have a law which is what we have been agitating for. The good news is that with the law in place, social protection has become a pillar in the state.
“This means people in government have to follow the dictate of the law. The law will also open opportunities to the state especially the poor and vulnerable among us. The law will also address those in the workplace and our health system in terms of insurance.
“So, having all the social protection issues under one roof will help us a long way. It is a whole package that will shape all ages from conception to death.
KADSPAC as a coalition of civil society which includes seasoned media practitioners has been involved in social protection from scratch till now.
“At the end of the day, we are to ensure there is a monitoring mechanism in such a way that the targeted beneficiaries of any rolled-out social protection package whether contributory health insurance or labour market intervention benefit.”
Meanwhile, many residents are wondering how and where the money to address the jaw-dropping poverty statistics in the state will come from because the state is highly indebted to foreign and domestic debtors to the tune of N348,864,897,661 (Medium Term Expenditure Framework – MTEF 2024-2026) as of December 21, 2022.
The debt, according to the MTEF, is made up of domestic debt of N83,294,928,661 and foreign debt of N265,569,969,000 as of 2022. These debts are expected to have reduced a bit having gone 10 months into the year 2023.
Team Lead of the Coalition of Association for Leadership, Peace, Empowerment and Development (CALPED), Yusuf Ishaku Goje, noted that the biggest conundrum for Governor Sani is public financial management in the face of exchange rate volatility and political expediency quickly added that the 2023 approved budget shows that this year the state will require N35.4 billion to service its debt.
“Many might quickly reference the recently published BudgIT State of States report where the state came fourth in fiscal performance ranking. However, it is worthy of note that the assessment was for the 2022 fiscal year, not 2023.
“A lot has happened since then – businesses closing shop or snowballing into bankruptcy, many have lost their jobs and fallen into poverty as a result of fuel subsidy removal and insecurity thereby affecting the State’s capacity to generate revenue, not to forget servicing of debt is depleting our monthly statutory allocation.
“Outside the need to engage in aggressive and innovative financial resource mobilization, a financial state of emergency needs to be declared, characterised by a culture of frugality and accountability.
“To achieve this, the administration will need to strengthen and empower two institutions, the Fiscal Responsibility Commission and the Office of the Auditor-General. This will not only ensure aggregate fiscal discipline, but more importantly, value-for-money in service delivery,” he suggested.