As part of federal government’s efforts towards evaluating the performance of the social investment programme at the grassroot ,66 trained independent monitoring officials have been engaged for timely report of the scheme.
The event which was anchored by the federal ministry of humanitarian affairs, disaster management, and social development was held at the Oyo state Secretariat, Ibadan.
In her welcome address, the permanent secretary, Oyo State Ministry of Women Affairs, Social Welfare and Poverty Alleviation, Mrs Christiana Abioye said two hundred and nine thousand ,one hundred and twenty pupils pupils drawn from two thousand four hundred and fifty eight public primary schools are currently benefiting from the homegrown programme.
Mrs Abioye who said the scheme was a right step in the right direction noted that federal government social investment programme was in line with the poverty alleviation programme of the state governor.
She, however, appealed to federal government to expand the social investment programme in view of the large increasing population in the state.
Represented by the Assistant Director, Planning, Research and statistics, in the ministry, Mrs Jumai Abdu-Ali, the Minister, ministry of humanitarian affairs, disaster management, and social development,Sadya Farouq said the sixty youths had earlier been trained for the programme saying a reminder training on the application of the social investment management information system,SIMIS became imperative for effective service delivery.
The Minister said the sum of thirty thousand could be paid as stipend to the participants while the contract would last for one year.
The Minister who said four thousand four hundred and fifty two applicants were shortlisted out of the five thousand applicants that applied Nationwide stressed the need for the participants to handle the task given them with full sense of responsibility.
The independent monitoring officials were to undertake periodic report on the performance of all federal government social investment and job creation programmes such as the N-power, Home grown school feeding and conditional cash transfer in their respective local governments in Oyo state.
Two of the participants Mr Olayinka Babarinde and Mrs Jumoke Ismail lauded the programme and appealed to federal government to sustain the scheme so as to enable them to plan their future through the stipends that would be given to them.
Rotimi Famakin