President Bola Tinubu has suspended all administered programmes by the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA).
According to Segun Imohiosen, Director of Information in the office to Secretary to the Government of the Federation, who announced this In a statement on Friday, the action was in light of the ongoing investigation of alleged malfeasance in the management of the agency and its programmes.
He said all four (4) Programmes administered by NSIPA, viz; N- Power Programme, Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme and Home Grown School Feeding Programme (the “Programs”) had been suspended for a period of six (6) weeks in the first instance.
:”President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has also raised significant concerns regarding operational lapses and improprieties surrounding payments to the Programs’ beneficiaries.”
“He has therefore constituted a ministerial panel to conduct a thorough review of the Agency’s operations with a view to recommending necessary reforms of the NSIPA.
“During the period of this suspension, all NSIPA-related activities, including but not limited to all distributions, events, payments, collaborations and registrations are now frozen.
“The President wishes to assure the stakeholders and all Nigerians that his administration remains committed to a swift and unbiased process that will ensure that, going forward, social intervention programmes will work exactly as intended, to the benefit of the most vulnerable Nigerians.”
Tinubu had earlier suspended Halima Shehu as National Coordinator of tNSIPA.
The suspension was reportedly based on allegations of financial misappropriation and money laundering involving N37.1 billion within the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development.
She was also arrested and interrogated by the EFCC after the suspension.
The EFCC later said it had recovered about N39.8 billion out of N44.8billion allegedly embezzled from the government account under her watch.
This came as the EFCC is currently investigating three second generation banks for their complicity in the illegal transfers of the funds meant for poverty alleviation and other intervention schemes of the current government.
Shehu had allegedly signed off N44billion from government account in five days between 27th and 31st December 2023.
She had previously served as the National Coordinator of the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme under the former Minister Sadiya Umar-Farouk, who was also summoned by the EFCC over the same case.
