The National Social Safety Nets third party project scorecard dissemination has been presented to stakeholders in Abuja.
The Executive Director, Centre for Health Education Economic Rehabilitation and Social Security (CHEERS), Ajia Ogugua Agagbo, said that the score card aims at promoting social investment and accountability within the context of any government or donor funded program.
“NASSP Third Party Monitoring’s (TPM) aim is to objectively and independently access beneficiaries/community’s awareness, perception and satisfaction with the National Social Safety Net Program as well as check the transparency and compliance level with the standard operating guidelines established for the program. It is within the principle of Citizens Engagements that a two-way interaction between citizens and the government/donor should be reflected showing that the citizens actually have a say in the program and confirms that they are aware, comfortable and satisfied with the activities being targeted at them”, Mrs Agagbo said.
She noted that during the first-year monitoring cycle, CHEERS led 11 Civil Society Organizations who were competitively selected by National Social Safety Nets Coordinating Office (NASSCO) through the World Bank procurement system as state level to monitor and independently report on the key objectives of the program.
“In the second year of the project, the same monitoring methodology was applied in monitoring 18 new states that were brought on board whereas Risk Based Monitoring approach was used to follow up with the issues raised during Year 1 monitoring in the old 19 states. The 18 states include Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Ebonyi, Enugu, Delta, Edo, Bayelsa, Rivers, Zamfara, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe, FCT, Imo, Abia, Akwa Ibom and Borno states”, She said.
The Executive Director also said that more communities and beneficiaries were reached during the second year of the project.
Report findings
The total population of beneficiaries sampled for the new 18 states are 119,669. This sample size of 119,669 beneficiaries represents 15% of the overall total of 797,790 on the payroll of NCTO during the 2nd year monitoring cycle. The NASSP TPM findings for this second year monitoring show that the proportion of beneficiaries paid stood at 56,244 (47%) of the total 119,669 respondents. The remaining 63,425 (53%) of total respondents had not been paid during the monitoring quarter. The reasons advanced for non-payment of cash to beneficiaries were due to logistics challenges by the program implementers.
In semester 1 monitoring cycle, beneficiaries in 4 states (Enugu, Rivers, Yobe and Ondo) informed the monitoring team that they were last paid two years ago. In Semester 2, the monitors acknowledged effort made by the program implementers in resuming their payment in Rivers and Yobe states. In Lagos and Borno states, half of the beneficiaries on the payment register confirmed to the monitors that they had not been paid in the last two years. There were also beneficiaries’ inability to go to the payment location during cash disbursement day to receive their payment, payment card issues as well as ill health of head of households.
Analyzed data from the field monitoring revealed that 107,702 respondents (90%) confirmed that there was compliance with guidelines for the principles of identification of poor and vulnerable households especially with the Community Sensitization and Engagement.
All 119,669 respondents (100%) of the sampled research population were confirmed to have been mined from the Social Register.
Mrs. Agagbo also said that CHEERS will not relent in its efforts to increase citizen’s engagement, transparency and accountability in the National Social Safety Net Program of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
On his part, the National Coordinator of NASSCO, Mr. Kabir Abdullahi, said the selection process for beneficiaries in the project was transparent.
He said that community leaders were used during the selection process to reach the poorest of the poor in the society.
He also said that the report highlighted some critical areas of interest which will be addressed.
Some of the highlights are people who were yet to be paid due to lack of access to them and he noted that those people will be paid in due course.
