Less than a billion naira has so far been spent from the N500billion voted for the Social Intervention Fund in the 2016 budget from where N80billion is being proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari as virement to other critical areas of the budgetary provisions having shortfalls.
Making the disclosure yesterday while appearing before the National Assembly Joint Committees on Appropriation, the Special Adviser to the President on Social Protection Plan, Mrs. Maryam Uwais, said though a total of N25 billion have been received by her office and additional N40billion approved last week, just about a billion naira out of the entire N500billion budgeted for the social intervention fund, has been spent.
According to her, poor releases accounted for the inability of her office to utilise the fund.
When the chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje (APC, Gombe Central) asked her whether she has objection on the virement of funds from her office, she said no.
She, however, explained to the lawmakers that out of the N65billion her office would have in its coffers, N60billion would be spent on 200,000 unemployed Nigerians recently engaged across the 774 local governments on the basis of N30, 000 per head.
On her part, the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, said the N500billion budgeted for the social intervention programme cannot be utilized before the end of this fiscal year.
She said the virement would be channeled to the Amnesty Programme, operations of the Armed forces, Operation Lafiya Dole, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Foreign Missions, the Nigerian Air Force (NAF), Presidential Initiative for the North East (PINE), among others.