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Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has expressed support for the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) drive to fight poverty with various projects that may touch 400,000 persons, including the Niger Delta region. The projects include interest-free loans.
Nsima Ekere, NDDC managing director, made the promise when the special adviser to the President and head of NSIP, Maryam Uwais, and other members of her team paid him a courtesy visit at the Commission’s headquarters in Port Harcourt.
The CEO commended the Federal Government’s initiative in the social investment programmes, stressing that the Commission would support NSIP in monitoring and working to fight poverty in the Niger Delta.
Ekere said since coming on board, the present board and management had made efforts to return the NDDC to its core mandate, stating that the Commission had as much as 8,000 projects currently ongoing.
He noted: “Over the years NDDC has done a lot in infrastructure. We also want to build human capital and that is where we connect with your mandate to fight poverty. We have signed collaborations that will help us to achieve this. We just recently signed collaboration with NEXIM Bank. Now that the value of crude oil is waning, we want to create an export initiative in the agricultural sector to create jobs and help the nation’s economy.”
He said the Commission was also partnering the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) to create jobs for the teeming unemployed youths in the Niger Delta as well as train women to run sustainable businesses.
Speaking earlier, the head of the NSIP called for the support of the NDDC in the area of funding to ensure that the four social investment programmes got to as many people as possible.
The special adviser gave details of the investments programmes, stating that N-Power, which was the job programme for unemployed graduates, was the largest spending item out of the four. She said the others are: “Home Grown School Feeding (HGSFP); Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) and the Government Enterprises Entrepreneurship Programme (GEEP).”
