Budgit Founder Criticizes Social Intervention Programs, Says They Are No “Ticket” Out Of Poverty

The director and co-founder of BudgIT, Seun Onigbide has criticized the social investment programmes of the federal government, adding that they are not a “ticket out of poverty“.

Onigbinde made this known during a television interview on Friday.

Over the past years, the federal government under President Muhammadu Buhari has initiated social investment programmes, which include cash transfer, school feeding scheme, and TraderMoni, as part of efforts to tackle poverty.

Onigbinde explained that social investment programmes cannot solely address the problem of poverty in the country.

“There are two problems. One, I have not seen a coherent evaluation or assessment of those plans (referring to social investment programmes),” he said.

“That is a problem. It is a bit shocking. If you look at the 2023 budget, around N350 billion, almost the same size with capital investments on roads, is what we are investing in social investment under the humanitarian ministry.

“That ministry did not even exist five or six years ago. My own big idea is that if you are putting N350 billion in a programme or even up to N500 billion in some instances, by the time you put the recurrent side to it, what is the impact you are getting from it?

“We are not even assessing the programmes as we should. It is just typical of Nigeria — spend the money — and nobody is given the rigour on the impact of the money.

“Second, that is not a ticket out of poverty. Most of these things are add-on. The fundamental way of getting people out of poverty is to give them dignity by making sure there is productivity in the economy and people have jobs.

“That is a problem. It is a bit shocking. If you look at the 2023 budget, around N350 billion, almost the same size with capital investments on roads, is what we are investing in social investment under the humanitarian ministry.

“That ministry did not even exist five or six years ago. My own big idea is that if you are putting N350 billion in a programme or even up to N500 billion in some instances, by the time you put the recurrent side to it, what is the impact you are getting from it?

“We are not even assessing the programmes as we should. It is just typical of Nigeria — spend the money — and nobody is given the rigour on the impact of the money.

“Second, that is not a ticket out of poverty. Most of these things are add-on. The fundamental way of getting people out of poverty is to give them dignity by making sure there is productivity in the economy and people have jobs.

“Without not being able to tackle that from the basic standard, whatever we are doing is add-on and we will not change the metrics significantly”, he said.