…approves application for $3.45bn W’Bank financing for power, other projects
…sets aside $700m for adolescent girls’ education
…okays draft policy for Solid Minerals Devt
NOSA EGHAGHA
ABUJA, Nigeria – In a bid to cater to the various humanitarian needs as well as take relief to the vulnerable population in the country, the Federal Executive Council (FEC), has approved the establishment of the Humanitarian and Poverty Alleviation Trust Fund.
This is as the trust fund is planned to operate on an annual $5 billion revenue, projected to be pooled from various sources.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu, disclosed this to State House correspondents after the FEC meeting chaired by President Bola Tinubu at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
She revealed that the Council also approved the application for a $3.45 billion World Bank financing for various projects, spread across five memoranda.
According to the Minister, there will be a Governing Board that will supervise the implementation of the fund as will be carefully worked out by members of the committee, saying “it 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 succour which the Renewed Hope Agenda stands for,” she said.
Speaking 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 to allow for emergency response to 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”, she said.
Asked how much the government was looking at, Edu said “every year we hope to be able to raise at least $5 billion within 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.”
The Minister said council also approved the ratification of the Protocol on the protection of the rights of older persons in Nigeria.
“We have signed up to the African charter and this has made us one of the countries within Africa that has approved that older people be protected and should not be discriminated against at any level and this gives them a lot of protection and the government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is interested in their welfare and protecting their rights”, she said.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, who also briefed after the Council meeting, said he secured approval for five loans totalling $3.45 billion from the Council meeting.
According to him, the funds are earmarked for projects that will bolster the power sector, renewable energy, education, and women’s empowerment.
He gave indications that funding for states resource mobilisation programme, which will help them with their internally-generated revenue efforts, was also encapsulated in the loan facility.
Edun also revealed that the loan facility had an initial 10 year moratorium at a very minimal interest rate to the Nigerian government.
“At the Federal Executive Council, today I presented five memos which were gracefully approved by the Federal Executive Council. They were to do with concessional and in many cases zero-interest financing by the World Bank and the International Development Association, which is the very concessional financing arm.
“The projects that were approved for funding were in the power sector and then the renewable energy sector. There was a funding for states for resource mobilisation programme to help them with the internally-generated revenue efforts.
“There was a project for adolescent girls’ initiative for learning and empowerment, essentially, as it says, 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.
“Then finally the fifth financing that was approved was for Women project and this is an additional project. The first one was very successful. It was all about empowering women, up-scaling their skills levels, and of course, giving them some financial inclusion, including in the banking system.
“So those were five loans totalling $3.45billion. 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,” he said.
Asked how much it would take to implement the adolescent girls’ education programme, 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.”
Also speaking at the briefing, Minister of Solid Mineral Development, Mr Dele Alake, said Council approved a new draft policy that would provide the teeth to regulate the sector and tackle illegal miners who he said are sponsoring banditry.
He said a review of policy became necessary because of the need to tap the solid mineral resources for diversification of the economy as crude oil would go extinct with the risk of leaving the country in dire straits.
Alake noted that the clamour for climate change mitigation, green energy solutions among other emerging innovations have all combined to reduce the value of oil in the international market.
“Of course, oil is still sold. However, the trend is going down. So, if we are not careful if we do not make conscious efforts to diversify, in a couple of years, Nigeria will find itself in economic dire straits and if we have an abundance of solid mineral resources, why shouldn’t we diversify, concentrate, exploit judiciously, proficiently and efficiently, these God given abundance resources?
“This in essence, encapsulates the policy decision that the Federal Executive Council approved. It’s a draft policy on the entire solid mineral sector, covering the gamut of oil activities, operations, guidelines, regulatory framework, handling, sourcing, mining, everything that has to do with all the dynamics in the sector.
“This policy approval today that we got from the Federal Executive Council now gives us in the ministry the teeth that we wanted to be able to act with precision on all of those things that we have marked up, especially in terms of security.
“You’re also quite aware of illegal mining activities all over the country, both high and low. I say that with all sense of responsibility. The artisanal so-called literal miners who just dig gold everywhere without licenses, these are so called illegal miners. We also have the high class also involved in this game.
“So, we are re-jigging the security architecture. We are involving inter-security agency structure to ensure that we combat this menace back. These and other measures were part of the policy that the federal executive council approved today.
“In essence, it gives the solid mineral ministry power to act on all issues pertaining to the regulation, management operation of all the solid minerals sector, sanitising the environment and making it investor friendly and ensuring the security and stability of investment and if of course, giving us a lot of attractions to both local and foreign investors.
“So the operationalisation of the solid mineral sector through the approval of today’s policy is being sanitised,” the Minister said.
Speaking about what the government would be doing differently to develop the Solid Minerals’ sector, Alake said “We are injecting a large dose of technology. We see the challenges of a porous border; the incident of illegal mining is pervasive in rural areas.
“The government has also traced the incidents of banditry to the handiwork of illegal miners, especially foreign illegal miners who sponsored banditry in the local areas.
“With the mindset of driving away the local population and moving in to explore, it’s technology that is helping us decipher these. We are working with the National Security Adviser, the Inspector General of Police,” he said.
Minister of Education, Dr Tahir Mamman, spoke on the Tinubu administration’s poise to reduce or ultimately eradicate the out-of-school children’s menace, disclosing that programmes are in place focused on achieving this target.
On the adolescent girl’s education programme, he noted that though it started from seven states, it had been expanded across 11 states.
“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 the participating states.
“This is a very major escalation of this programme that is meant to empower our girls, our teachers and the provision for additional schools in the country,” said Mamman.
