Reps Committee Directs NG-CARES To Submit Expenditure Reports

The House of Representatives Committee on Community and Social Development/NG-CARES, chaired by Rep. Abubakar Kusada, has instructed the Federal CARES Support Unit to provide detailed financial documentation covering its activities from 2009 through 2021.

The directive was issued during an interactive session with officials from the Nigeria Community Action for Resilience and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) programme in Abuja.

During the meeting, lawmakers called on NG-CARES to submit comprehensive, state-by-state reports outlining the efforts and outcomes achieved by each state coordinator, particularly in relation to flood response and mitigation.

The committee also discussed operational matters with the programme’s National Coordinator, Dr. Abdulkarim Obaje, emphasizing the need for accurate reconciliation of state-level results before publicly disclosing disbursement figures.

In his remarks, Dr. Obaje acknowledged the committee’s oversight role and noted that the repayment of loans obtained for the initiative has been adversely affected by fluctuations in foreign exchange rates.

He revealed that although the loan agreement with the World Bank was valued at $70 million, approximately $2.2 billion has been disbursed across various states under the initiative.

He further clarified that NG-CARES—formerly known as the Nigeria COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus Programme—was developed as a federal government response mechanism aimed at addressing the socioeconomic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and other related shocks.

According to him: “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) that were 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”

Medium Odumade Edited By Shakirah Alabi