We Have No Data For Intervention Programmes – Minister

Minister of humanitarian affairs and poverty alleviation, Betta Edu has said her ministry does not have complete data to effectively carry out the federal government’s social investment programmes. 

“We need to have data, we need to have a strategic plan… to be able to carry out our social investment programmes,” the minister said at the 29th Nigerian Economic Summit.

Represented by the national programme manager for At-risk Children Programme, Zaziha Sanusi Yusuf at the ministerial roundtable, Edu also said 21 million children in Nigeria are not registered at birth. Apart from that, she said 2.5 million children are unvaccinated from preventable diseases, creating fear about the health safety of many children in the country.

She made the disclosure at the just concluded 29th Nigerian Economic Summit during a ministerial roundtable on National Child Well-being in Abuja.

Also, minister of education, Tahir Maman has said Nigeria currently has a deficit of 950,000 teachers and 20,000 classrooms, a situation that further compounds the many challenges facing the nation’s education.

Maman also said the federal government has gotten a $700 million World Bank support fund for adolescent girls in a learning and empowerment scheme, adding that the government would build 500 classrooms of various capacities in schools across the country from the funds.

 “Under the scheme, we are going to have 500 classrooms of various capacities in various schools,” he said.

 He said the minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy, Wale Edun confirmed the receipt of the funds.

Nigeria’s country representative, UNICEF, Ms Christian Munduate challenged the authorities to start building quality health and education for Nigerian children with more budget allocation to health. 

She said that the government’s current budget for health now is not enough.