The House of Representatives Committee on Community and Social Development/NG-CARES, chaired by Hon. Abubakar Kusada, has requested documents from the Federal CARES Support Unit of the Nigeria Community Action for Resilience and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) detailing their transactions from 2009 to 2021.
Mr Kusada issued the directive during an interactive meeting held at the National Assembly Complex, Abuja, between members of his committee and representatives of the group.
During the meeting, the lawmakers urged NG-CARES to urgently provide state-by-state reports outlining the achievements of all state coordinators in mitigating the effects of flooding.
Committee members also took the opportunity to discuss with the National Coordinator of the group, Abdulkarim Obaje, how he should manage the results with the states prior to publishing the amounts of money each state has received.
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In his brief presentation, the National Coordinator commended the lawmakers for their effective oversight and explained that loan repayments have been hampered by the country’s fluctuating exchange rates.
He further informed the lawmakers that the loan agreement between Nigeria and the World Bank is valued at $70 million, while disbursements totalling $2.2 billion have been made across various states in Nigeria.
Earlier, in response to questions from the committee, the National Coordinator explained that the Nigeria Community Action for Resilience and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) Programme formerly known as the Nigeria COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus is one of the shock response mechanisms established by the Federal Government to address the negative impacts of the pandemic and other related shocks.
According to him: “The NG-CARES Programme is a World Bank-assisted multi-sectoral intervention specifically designed to provide immediate emergency relief to poor and vulnerable Nigerians, smallholder farmers, and micro and small enterprises (MSEs) adversely affected by various shocks, including COVID-19.”
“The NG-CARES Programme is implemented by the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) using the Programme-for-Results (PforR) lending instrument.
The Programme Development Objective (PDO) is ‘to expand access to livelihood support and food security services, and grants for poor and vulnerable households and firms.’”
