According to the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the 2016 budget was designed in such a way that it will lift millions of Nigerians out of poverty.
The assurance was made by the Minister on Thursday while visiting the corporate headquarters of the Leadership newspaper, as part of his continuous engagement with stakeholders in the media industry.
During the visit, the Minister proceeded to dismiss speculations of disagreement between the Executive and the Legislature over the 2016 budget which has already been passed by the National assembly.
”There is absolutely no rift, no issue of budget being sent back. Things are just taking their due course,” he maintained.
Also on the 2016 budget, the Minister denied that the President has refused to sign the Appropriation Bill passed by the Senate, he said; ”It takes a few days (after the passage) for the National Assembly to clean up the document in readiness for the President’s assent.”
Analysing the content of the budget and it’s effect on the Economic conditions of the country particularly benefiting the citizens, he said; “The first is the employment of 500,000 unemployed university graduates who we are going to train as teachers. Two, we are also employing 370,000 unemployed non-graduates, people with National Diploma and Technical Certificate. The third tranche is the social intervention targeted at 1 million people made up of market women, traders and artisans to be trained and given loans through their cooperatives.
“The fourth one is the home-grown One-Meal-A-Day Programme. Here we are targeting several millions of pupils in primary schools all over Nigeria. The exponential effect of this one meal a day is huge. Even if we are targeting five million pupils and we are giving each of them one egg a day, you are talking about five million eggs that will be provided by our poultry farmers. This will also help to increase the demand for maize and then you are going to employ people all around,”
Alhaji Lai Mohammed also noted that the government through the budget will establish a special bursary scheme to grant scholarships to students of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in a deliberate effort to support the students financially while also bolstering the nation’s drive for industrialization.
Further highlighting the benefits of the 2016 budget, he added that the government will initiate a Conditional Cash Transfer to the most vulnerable Nigerians and will commence work on abandoned infrastructural projects with an injection of N350 billion aimed at both infrastructurally developing the country and creating jobs for the unemployed.