By Damilare Adeleye
The House Of Representatives has asked President Bola Tinubu to mandate Wale Edun, minister of finance, to unfreeze all the accounts of the National Social Investment Programmes Agency (NSIPA) within 72 hours.
The lower legislative chamber passed the resolution during plenary on Tuesday.They argued that unfreezing the accounts would enable the smooth recommencement of all the programmes of NSIPA.
The house also urged the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management to ensure that all the administrative bottlenecks hindering the smooth operations of all programmes of NSIPA are immediately removed.
The resolutions were reached following the adoption of a motion sponsored by the deputy speaker and 20 other lawmakers.
Lawmakers are disturbed that despite the programmes of NSIPA being vital for poverty alleviation, youth empowerment, and economic inclusivity in Nigeria, the agency’s functionality has been hindered due to administrative bottlenecks, insufficient funding, and frozen accounts.
The programmes of NSIPA were truncated by alleged financial mismanagement by handlers of the programmes, leading to the suspension of programmes and freezing of the agency’s account and subsequent investigation by anti-corruption and security agencies.
