News Editor
By David Odama
Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, has 2025 N260billion appropriation to the National Assembly to fulfill its mandate of creating two million jobs in the 2025 fiscal year.
The minister in charge of the ministry, Professor Nentawe Yilwata made the request on Friday in his presentation to the National Assembly joint Committee on Poverty Reduction and Social Investment during the 2025 budget defence session.
He said: “The National Assembly should note that the ministry has a mandate to create two million jobs in 2025.
“This will be achieved through a combination of efforts. The ministry has already procured starter packs 7 that enable over 110,000 beneficiaries to embark on self-reliant ventures. These starter packs are vital tools for entrepreneurship and economic growth.
“However, to ensure the success of these programmes, we require N55 billion funds to conduct a two-week intensive training for all beneficiaries, payment of resource person and logistics funding to facilitate the effective distribution of the starter packs at N45,000 per beneficiary.
“There is need for monitoring and evaluation to ensure the transparency and sustainability of these initiatives at N5,000 per beneficiary.
“Additionally, we need to train 50,000 unemployed graduates and non graduates under our Skill2Wealth Initiative which seeks to create many micro and small scale businesses.
“This will cost N50 billion (at N1,000,000 per beneficiary: covering training in all the 36 states and FCT, Starter pack, linkage to the market and M&E).
“There is also the need to create a budget line for Humanitarian Response Fund of N10 billion for communities affected by climate-change related disasters, conflicts and man-made crises, including: flooding, fire outbreaks and insurgency attacks that have displaced thousands.
“In the same vein, another budget line of N15 billion is required in 2025 fiscal year for durable solutions for households affected by disaster in 2024 just as
additional sum of N130 billion is required by the ministry as intervention fund to resolve these humanitarian and poverty reduction challenges across the country in 2025.”
While responding to questions bothering on the non-implementation of the 5,000 vulnerable Nigerians, the minister assured that efforts will be intensified to get Mr. President’s approval for the release of the sum of N3.7billion approved in the 2024 Appropriation Act as grant to 5,000 vulnerable groups domiciled with Access Bank for onward disbursement to the beneficiaries.
According to him, the ministry’s 2025 overhead ceiling was increased from the sum of N682.682.013billion in 2024 to the sum of N978,386,116.00billion in 2025, representing 43.31% increase above the 2024 budget with a view to cushioning effect of inflation.
He, however, lamented that the capital budget ceiling of N4,601,092.674.00 would not be able to address the ever increasing humanitarian challenges, saying “it is worth noting that global humanitarian support from donor countries have dropped, and most donors are targeting the Middle East, Sudan and Ukraine.”
The minister, who was accompanied by the National Coordinator of National Social Investment Programme Agency, NSIPA, Mr. Gbadamosi Lawan also solicited for the amendment of the NSIPA Act with a view to addressing some of the gaps that may hamper effective operations of the agency, especially in the area of funding such as recurrent expenditure.
In their separate responses, the co-chairmen of the joint committee, Senator Idiat Adebule and Hon. Abdulkadir Jobe, assured Yilwatda of the readiness of the National Assembly to provide sufficient fund for the ministry in 2025 fiscal year for its various intervention programmes geared towards reduction of poverty among the vulnerable Nigerians and mitigating humanitarian crises.
