Incentives for Private Sector Outlined in Document

The Federal Executive Council has approved the National Sports Industry Policy(NSIP) proposed to it by the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development.

This approval was given during its meeting on Wednesday, bringing to a positive end the efforts of the Sports Ministry under the headship of Minister Sunday Dare to get the policy document in place for the administration of sports in the country.

Some of the approved incentives as outlined in the policy document include;

A) Tax exemption and rebate for a period of 5 years for investors in the value chain of sports.

B) Land provision and waiver for certain fees on lands meant for sports.

C) Single digit loan interest rates for corporate organisations and private individuals investing in the sports value chain.

D) Independent Government Grant through the establishment of an Independent Athletes Welfare Fund(AWF)from which athletes representing the country can draw support for education and training.

E) Application of the Renovate Operate Transfer(ROT), Build Operate and Transfer(BOT), Integrated National Financial Framework(INFF), Nigeria Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan(NIIMP) or any other innovative PPP financing model for the provision, rehabilitation of sports facilities in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning.

F) Full operationalisation and enforcement of the sports Code of Governance.

The Policy outlines an effective means of improving the funding of sports, delineating the obligations of the different tiers of government, the participation of the private sector and other stakeholders in sports.

The thrust areas of the National Sports Industry Policy(NSIP) are as follows;

Federations and athletes’ development, education, health, capacity development and training, inclusivity and social development in the community, provision of facilities and infrastructure, economic development, legislative environment and international relations, funding, finance and investment for sports and the digital economy.

Only recently, the Federal Government reclassified sports as business, and not mere recreation, to birth the vision of the Policy in ensuring that sports play a prominent role as an instrument of national unity, cohesion; promoting health and fitness through mass participation; and contributing to economic development and global recognition.

In the coming weeks, the Finance Ministry and relevant financial agencies will meet to work out specific details of the incentives.

The Federal Government on Wednesday, retrained the independent monitors to ensure the effective implementation of all components of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) in Kogi State.

Speaking at the workshop in Lokoja, the Minister, Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development (FMHADMSD), Hajia Sadiya Farouq, said the training was to re-orientate the participants to ensure better performance.

Represented by her Special Assistant on Monitoring and Evaluation, Mrs Damisa Dauda, the Minister urged the monitors to improve on their performance to ensure quality and accurate data.

According to her, the independent monitors’ unit was designed to monitor and report the activities of NSIP in their respective local government areas across the state.

”The National office of the NSIP through Consultants, is also monitoring the activities of the independent monitors and their performances.

”Please, help us to do your monitoring better as we need accurate data for proper and effective implementation of the programme,” she said.

She, therefore, advised the monitors to abide by the rules and regulations of the applications installed on their tablets, saying as any abnormalities would be detected.

She commended Kogi Government for givng the enormous support for the NSIP particularly the engagement and reorientation workshop in the state.

Earlier, Mr. Suleiman Abdulkareem Onyekehi, the NSIP Focal Person, Kogi State, urged the independent monitors to support and cooperate with them for effective monitoring and evaluation.

Onyekehi, who doubles as the Special Adviser to the Governor on Special Projects, noted that the NSIP had had great positive impacts in the lives of the people and the had tremendously boosted the state’s economy.

”As far as we are concerned the NSIP is yielding the desired results in the state. We have increased beneficiaries in all aspects of the program,

”The number of beneficieries under the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) was about 11,500 in 2019, but it has increased to over 74,000 now.

”The school feeding programme had 115,000 pupils in 2019, but has increased to over 258,000 pupils which have been revalidated by the National Bureau of Statistics in the state.

”Over 177,000 pupils have been successfully captured and are currently being fed in public primary schools across the state,” he said.

He added that over 14000 youths have been employed under the Batch C Stream 1, NPOWER program, while over 68,000 persons had been captured under the GEEP program for zero interest loan.

He thanked the governor for his commitment to supporting the programme wholeheartedly and always at the forefront of supporting President Muhammad Buhari’s welfare programmes for the people.

He further commended the governor for providing befitting office accommodation,, staff welfare, and logistics for the successful implementation of the NSIP in the state.

He urged the federal government to help States in terms of media coverage, utility vehicles for each of the component of the program for effective monitoring, and other logistics.

The Lead Consultant, North Central Monitoring and Evaluation of NSIP, Mr Tim Elebuna, said the workshop was to retrain participants to bring them to speed with the latest development around their monitoring and evaluation activities.

The NSIP was designed by the federal government to lift 100 million Nigerians out of abject poverty.

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The Home Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSFP) under the Federal Government’s National Social Investment Programme (NSIP), on Thursday resumed in public primary schools in Kogi Stste.

The Kogi State Focal Person of NSIP, Hon. Abdulkareem Suleiman Onyekehi, told journalists shortly after monitoring some schools in Lokoja on Friday, that the inspection was to ensure strict compliance by the cooks and relevant stakeholders for the appropriate feeding of the school pupils.

The school feeding programme was monitored in company of HGSFP’s Unit Head, Hajia Khadijat Karibo.

Among the schools’ visited was Holy Trinity LGEA Primary School and St Luke LGEA Primary School, Lokoja, where the Head Mistress of the Holy Trinity school, Mrs Modupe Olurundare, expressed her delight to have received such personalities in the school.

The head mistress commended the Caterers for the outstanding service delivered and praised the Focal Person and his team for the surprise visit to the school.

Oluwadare further applauded the Management of NSIP for ensuring effective service delivery in the state.

The head mistress thereafter pleaded for the inclusion of Nursery school pupils, saying they deserved equal right from the Federal Government.

On her part, the Program Manager, Hajia Khadijat Karibo noted that the Federal Government was yet to include the nursery pupils in its budget and as such could not benefit from the feeding programme at the moment. The program targets primary 1-3 pupils with the hope of expansion to cover all pupils.

The focal person and the programme manager also went round the classrooms to inspect and have a taste of the meals, where the pupils expressed their excitement for the gesture from the Federal and State Governments.

The focal person, who doubles as the Special Adviser to the Governor on Special Projects, commended His Excellency for his unalloyed support for the program in all ramifications.

”We are grateful to our amiable and pragmatic Governor for taking the lead as far as the NSIP is concerned in Kogi State

”We thanked His Excellency for the office infrastructures provided for NSIP, and for ensuring the enabling environment for the full implementations of all the packages under the NSIP”, Onyekehi said.

The Home-Grown School Feeding Programme is aimed to deliver school feeding to public primary school pupils with a specific focus on increasing school enrolment and reducing malnutrition.

The HGSFP is also designed to empowering community women as cooks and by supporting farmers that help stimulate economic growth.

The HGSFP commenced in Kogi State in February 18, 2019 up to January 16, 2020, and was in progress before the outbreak of COVID 19 pandemic, which made the programme to be put on hold, and reintroduced on Thursday July 15, 2021.

The HGSFP had been on pilot stage in Kogi, and had engaged about 1,400 caterers to feed the current number of over 85,000 pupils.

Additional caterers were being recruited in order to capture more public primary schools to accommodate more pupils who were yet to benefit from the scheme.

Currently, Kogi State has captured over 177, 640 pupils to be fed by 2,937 cooks.

Concerted efforts are in high gear to capture all public primary schools in Kogi State with a total of over 258,000 pupils as recently validated by the National Bureau of Statistics.

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Mr Abdulkareem Suleiman Onyekehi, the Focal Person of National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) Kogi State, said the Federal Government had injected over N17 billion into the state’s economy through the programme since its inception in 2016.

Onyekehi told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lokoja, that the NSIP has four components which include: N-POWER, National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), Conditional Cash Transfer Programme (CCT), and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), being implemented in Kogi State.

Onyekehi, who doubles as the Special Adviser to the Governor on Special Projects, told NAN that over 43, 000 petty traders have benefited from the GEEP, over 34,000 beneficiaries of CCT, over 12,000 for NPower and about 85, 000 pupils for HGSFP, have benefited in the State through the programme.

According to him, approximately N297 million has been injected through HGSFP, N800 million through GEEP, N5 billion through CCT, and N12 billion through NPower into Kogi economy via the programme.

”The Federal Government of Nigeria established the NSIP in 2016, to tackle poverty and hunger across the country.

”The suite of programme under the NSIP focuses on ensuring a more equitable distribution of resources to vulnerable populations, including children, youth and women.

”Kogi State keyed into the programme in partnership and have developed enormous capacity for the implementation across all the components.

”The Kogi State Government secured a befitting office complex for NSIP, funding sensitization and implementation logistics as well as payment of SIP staff salaries”, he said.

He said that the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSFP) was aimed to deliver school feeding to public primary school pupils with a specific focus on increasing school enrolment and reducing malnutrition.

He added that the HGSFP was also designed to empowering community women as cooks and by supporting farmers that help stimulate economic growth.

The focal person explained that the HGSFP had been on pilot stage in Kogi, had engaged about 1,400 caterers to feed the current number of over 85,000 pupils.

He added that additional caterers were being recruited in order to capture more public primary schools to accommodate more pupils who were yet to benefit from the scheme.

He said that the HGSFP commenced in Kogi State in February 18, 2019 up to January 16, 2020, and was in progress before the outbreak of COVID 19 pandemic, which made the programme to be put on hold till date.

”Currently, we have captured 177, 640 pupils to be fed by 2,937 cooks.

”Concerted efforts are in high gear to capture all public primary schools in Kogi State with a total of over 258,000 pupils as recently validated by the National Bureau of Statistics.

”However, newly modified COVID-19 tagged Take Home Rations (THRs) which was anxiously expected to have commenced, having carried out adequate sensitization and high level of preparedness is yet to commence in Kogi State”, Onyekehi said.

He added that the current food menu for the HGSFP given to the pupils were: rice, beans, pasta, egg, bread, beef, moimoi and pap.

”The GEEP is a micro-lending intervention that targets traders, artisans, enterprising youth, farmers and women in particular, by providing loans between N10,000, N50,000, N100,000 and N300,000 at zero interest cost to beneficiaries.

”In Kogi State, over 50,000 SMEs have benefited from the GEEP, such as Trader-moni, N10,000; and Market-Moni between N50,000 -100,000 at zero interest loan.

He said that a total sum of about N800 million had so far been disbursed to 50,441 beneficiaries of both Trader-moni and Market-moni in Kogi State.

He explained that a total sum of N434.4 million had been disbursed to 43,443 beneficiaries under Trader-moni, while N365.2 million disbursed to 6,998 beneficiaries under Market-moni in Kogi State.

He, however noted that the newly introduced Farmer-Moni of N300,000 with zero interest loan by the federal government was yet to commence in the state.

Speaking on the N-Power, Onyekehi told NAN that the programme was designed to assist young unemployed Nigerian graduates and non graduates to acquire and develop life-long skills to become change makers in their communities.

According to him, with a stipend of N30,000 monthly, a total of 12,964 youths of Batch A and B from December 2016 to June 2020, have so far benefited from the scheme in Kogi, amounting to about N11.6 billion.

On the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), he said that the programme directly support those within the lowest poverty bracket by improving nutrition, increasing household consumption and human capital development through cash benefits to various categories of the poor and vulnerable.

”The CCT otherwise known as Household Uplifting Programme (HUP) is designed to deliver timely and accessible cash transfers to poor and vulnerable citizens.

”It supports poor and vulnerable households with N5,000 monthly stipend to cushion their consumption levels with the overall objective of reducing poverty, prevent the vulnerable from falling into poverty lines and building their resilience to withstand shocks.

”Presently, Kogi State has a total of over 72,000 on the next phase of payment schedule and 12,091 with on-going enrolment while awaiting 49,000 new data.

”The current number of beneficiaries is 34,000, with monetary value of approximately N5 billion injected into the economy of Kogi from CCT alone”, Onyekehi said.

He commended President Muhammadu Buhari for the initiative in providing jobs and lifting the poorest and vulnerable citizens out of poverty, assuring the commitment of His Excellency, Governor Yahaya Bello to the full implementation of all FG programmes in the state.

Onyekehi further commended the governor for being a strong advocate of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration owing to the maximum support he has given to the program for effective implementations.

”The Governor secured the NSIP office complex, pay NSIP staff salaries, funds all the implementations logistics and other running cost of the NSIP office.

”Without the support of the Governor, it would have been difficult for NSIP to record these achievements so far in Kogi State.

Onyekehi appealed to the federal government for more logistics for the office of the Focal Person of Kogi NSIP for more effective implementations and program for result (PforR).

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