ABUJA —THE Federal Executive Council, FEC, yesterday approved the establishment of the Humanitarian and Poverty Alleviation Trust Fund as part of the administration’s efforts to cushion the economic hardship on vulnerable Nigerians. The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Betta Edu, disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the third council meeting presided over by President Bola Tinubu at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Edu said the fund was expected to garner up to $5 million annually. According to her, there will be a governing board that will supervise the implementation of the Fund which will be carefully worked out by members of the committee. She said: “Tt will involve the minister for finance and other ministers that are relevant to the process.
“This is a flexible form of financing that is supposed to help Nigeria adequately respond to humanitarian crises and challenges as well as adequately address the issue of poverty in Nigeria.
“This of course is a victory for the poor and indeed, would bring help and succor which the Renewed Hope Agenda stands for.”
On the importance of the approval, she said: “Again, we are grateful to President Bola Tinubu today for the approval given for the creation of the Humanitarian and Poverty Alleviation Trusts Fund.
“This is a flexible form of financing that can help us get contributions from different sectors. So we’re going to have contributions from government, from the private sector, development partners, individuals, philanthropic individuals, and other innovative forms of crowd-funding and pooling of funds together.
“This is to allow for an emergency response to the humanitarian crisis in Nigeria. Every other day we hear about crisis, the floods and the rest of it.”
‘’We need to be able to respond adequately as a country. Beyond this, the issue of poverty alleviation is one of the agendas of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his eight-point agenda and we want to be able to tackle it headlong.”
On how much the government was looking at, Edu said: “Every year, we hope to be able to raise at least $5 billion in this fund and this is from the various sources that I’ve mentioned and even more.
‘’We are hopeful that with the creation of this funding, we can sit down with all the key stakeholders, including other ministries, and actually work out the full modality of implementation in Nigeria.”
Also briefing, the Minister of Solid Mineral Development, Dele Lake, said the council approved a draft policy for the solid minerals sector, encompassing oil activities, operations, guidelines, regulatory framework, sourcing, mining, and all other dynamics in the sector. He said the approval empowered the ministry to act precisely on issues, including security measures, combating illegal mining activities across the country, and securing Nigeria’s economic survival.
Alake added: “The solid mineral sector is critical to Nigeria’s economic survival due to ongoing changes in the global oil market, the push for climate change, and the shift towards green energy. Illegal mining activities, from artisanal miners to high-level involvement, are significant challenges.
“We are reorganising the security structure and engaging inter-agency cooperation to combat this menace.
“The approval today, as part of the policy, allows the Solid Minerals Ministry to act on all matters related to deregulation, management, operation, and environmental sanitization of the Solid Minerals sector.
“This makes the sector more investor-friendly, ensuring security and stability for investments and attracting both local and foreign investors.
“Therefore, the operationalization of the solid mineral sector through today’s policy approval aims to sanitize the sector,” he added.
Minister of Finance, and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, on his part, said council approved five loans, totalling N3.45 billion for the execution of five projects, conditioned in the five memos he presented. The memos approved include concessional loans with zero-interest financing by the World Bank and the International Development Association, the concessional financing arm of the bank.
He said the projects approved for funding were in the power and renewable energy sectors.
Council, he said, also approved funding for states for resource mobilization programmes to help them with the generated revenue efforts. Council also approved a project for adolescent girls’ initiative for learning and empowerment, essentially, saying, “it’s a programme to support young girls from the age of 11, secondary school age, and to ensure that at the end of the schooling, they have one skill or the other that is marketable, as well as the academic laurels.”
Edun said the fifth financing that Council approved is for Women project.
He said: “This is a an additional project. The first one was very successful. It was all about empowering women, upscaling their skills levels, and of course, giving them some financial inclusion, including in the banking system.
“So those were five loans totaling N3.45 billion. And as you know, the tenure is all around 40 years, moratorium period of around 10 years and interest very low, or in the cases of the either loans, zero interest, although some fees would be incurred.
Speaking more on the financing for adolescent girls Edun said: “Essentially, financing or fundraising counterparty in transactions with World Bank, Ministry of Education as the implementer, I think is a question of ‘the more the merrier’. I think you’ll agree with me that we can’t have too much financing for education for adolescent girls, for women generally. Financing for the girl child; $700 million is the size of the current project.”
Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman on his part said approved two memos his ministry presented. He said: “Two things I want to mention and comment on which are very important part of the deliberations and resolve in the council today.
“One is additional funding for the training and empowerment of adolescent girls in Nigeria. One of the major policies of the government is to target the education, training and empowerment of young girls into society.
“Initially from seven participating states, we will now have about 11 additional states participating in this project, which will lead to the empowerment of girls between 10 to 20 right across
Source: Vanguard
