Edun-Led Panel Seeks Removal of SIP from Humanitarian Ministry

The presidential panel on social investment programmes has recommended the removal of intervention initiatives from the purview of the humanitarian affairs ministry.

The panel led by Wale Edun, minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy, sent its recommendation to President Bola Tinubu.

The social investment programmes are currently domiciled in the federal ministry of humanitarian affairs and poverty alleviation.

They are implemented by the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA) by law.

The programmes N-Power Programme, Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme, and Home Grown School Feeding Programme were put on hold after Tinubu suspended Betta Edu as the humanitarian affairs minister.

Edu has since submitted herself to a probe by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Edu ran into trouble after a memo surfaced wherein she asked Oluwatoyin Madein, accountant-general of the federation, to transfer the sum of N585 million to a private account.

Thereafter, other documents where she made controversial approvals, including approving air fares to Kogi, a state without an airport, went viral, prompting the president to suspend her.

A week prior, Halima Shehu was suspended as the chief executive officer (CEO) of NSIPA over alleged financial malfeasance. Edu had alleged that billions of naira went missing on Shehu’s watch.

Apart from the EFCC probe, Tinubu directed that the panel led by Edun should “among other functions, conduct a comprehensive diagnostic on the financial architecture and framework of the social investment programmes with a view to conclusively reforming the relevant institutions and programmes”.