The National Economic Council (NEC) presided over by Vice President Kashim Shettima, has dumped the National Social Register under former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration for lack of integrity.
The council instead proposed a cash transfer programme for states based on their social registers and a cash reward policy for public servants for six months.
NEC resolved that the states should come up with their own registers developed using formal and informal means, saying it was the best way that target beneficiaries at the subnational level could easily be reached.
This was disclosed at a joint briefing by Governors of Anambra, Bauchi and Ogun States, Charles Soludo, Bala Mohammed and Dapo Abiodun, respectively at the end of the NEC meeting
Anambra governor affirmed that NEC deliberated on ways to cushion the impact of the recent petroleum subsidy removal.
Soludo who spoke first said “there was almost near unanimity among members that there’s a big question mark about the integrity of the so called National Social Register. We have questions about how those names in the register were brought about and I’m sure one question I hear asked is whether it is for the most vulnerable group, and so on and so forth.”
He said members questioned how it was possible that the poorest of the poor among Nigerians captured in the social register used in distributing palliatives by the Buhari government had bank accounts and mobile phones.
“Maybe they must be talking about some other people, not Nigerians. The poorest 25 percent of Nigerians are largely if not totally unbanked, and they don’t have access to your telephone, if it is of the poorest of the poor of our society…
“So the integrity test is what is missing with that register. Many have just described what is being counted as National Register as either bogus. Some described it as phantom, some described it in all manner of terms. So we need to face the problem, the fact that we don’t have a credible register and get back to work on this.”
The council also emphasised the importance of paying outstanding liabilities of public servants, including pensions and gratuities, to alleviate their hardships. The Anambra governor said members deliberated on the need to cut down cost of governance and for governors “…to live within the average of the people that we’re governing and knockoff the waste and the irrelevances…”
Soludo said the council also mentioned the possibility of negotiating a new minimum wage over time, while clarifying that the federal allocation to be shared between federating units for June will be around N900 billion, not the speculated N2 trillion, to moderate its impact on the system.
Soludo also spoke on the need to review the minimum wage currently at N30,000.
He said: “As part of those recommendations over the medium, longer term, and that is the possibility of negotiating a new minimum wage. That obviously will be on the table. But that has to be negotiated through the appropriate structures for doing that over time.”
Abiodun, the Ogun State Governor, said Council also agreed that government will focus on funding Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) with single-digit interest rates to support business growth as well as immediate implementation of the Energy Transition Plan was discussed, focusing on transitioning to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) for mass transit vehicles to reduce reliance on petrol.
The council stated that government aims to set up manufacturing and assembly plants for electric vehicles (EVs) in each zone in the country in the long term, but in the meantime, they encourage the conversion to CNG to create employment and reduce petrol dependency.
Council agreed that food items grains and fertilisers are to be distributed by state governments at the rate acquired from National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and states are urged to double down on energy transition plans in the transport sector.
Bauchi governor, Bala Mohammed explained that the council addressed food security and food price escalation by allocating buffer stocks of grains for distribution to states, which they can choose to sell them at a subsidised rate or distribute them for free to ease the burden on citizens.
Acting Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Folashodun Shonubi, said Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue have a presentation on what they have done so far as regards the level of collections.
He said: “It was nice to know that they are ahead of their target for half year. And we expect that before or by the time the year ends they would exceed. They also gave us some idea of what next year should be like from them. And from this year, we hope to make some N10 trillion. It is planning that next year, we should be able working with all the agencies provide N25 trillion as their contribution to the national coffers.”