$1 billion SIP, biggest fraud, conduit pipe for gov’t officials – HURIWA

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), an advocacy group has described as biggest fraud in the Nigerian history the annual sum of $1 billion allocated to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management for Social Investment Programme (SIP).

The Social Investment Programme which is a programme of the Federal Government, but is implemented by the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouq, HURIWA argued has been a conduit pipe for siphoning billions of taxpayers’ funds for the past six years.

The National Coordinator of Emmanuel Onwubiko, in a statement which was obtained by CAPITAL POST on Friday submitted that the more money, the more poverty stare on faces of Nigerians to the extent that Nigeria has become the poverty capital of the world.

The group expressed surprise that
the population of the poor keeps doubling up since 2015 when the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari came into being, adding that it has surpassed that of India in the poverty index.

The statement averred that the SIP which the humongous amount of $1 billion was tied to, annually, has been so abused to the extent that the Minister in charge handpicked few well paid Non governmental organisations to monitor the activities of the office of the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management in the execution of the Social welfare initiative.

HURIWA contended that they could be no objectivity and independence monitoring in the circumstance that the NGOs are friends of the Minister.

The body charged the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation to immediately swing into action to expose the financial transactions of the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq.

HURIWA urged the Auditor General to audit activities of the agency in line with the global best practices and publish
names of all the vendors working for the government on the project, their addresses, owners, and other important verifiable details.

The Minister had in the past through the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Nasir Gwarzoh, reportedly said $1 billion is being earmarked annually for Social Investment Programme.

“NSIP is one of the largest social protection programmes in Africa, with over $1billion earmarked annually to cause positive change in the lives of the poorest and the most vulnerable in the country.

“Let me use this opportunity to inform us that over 12 million households had benefitted from NSIP interventions in the last five years.”

Reacting, HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “The National Social Investment Programme which include the School-Feeding Programme is the perhaps the biggest fraud scheme in the whole of Africa.

“This is the most significant governmental fraud to have ever been activated in Africa because apart from being opaque, it is also characterised by absolutely falsehoods especially in the so called school feeding programme whereby pupils are fed with obviously poorly prepared foods that taste like foods that are fed to local breed of dogs in the villages”, the statement said.