24 September 2013, Abuja – The Federal Government has proposed N273.1bn for the funding of projects expected to be executed under the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme, SURE-P, in 2014.
It has also recommended N1.2bn as running cost for the members of the board of the intervention body.
The figure, which was contained in the Medium -Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper presented to the Senate by President Goodluck Jonathan last week was about N818m higher than what the body got in the 2013 fiscal year.
The government voted N273.522m for the programme in 2013, while the projected funding for 2015 and 2016 is fixed at N180bn for each year.
The Federal Government pledged to sustain the intervention scheme aimed at managing and re- investing its share of the savings from the partial removal of subsidies on petroleum products.
It also promised that earmarked funds would continue to be expended on programmes that would benefit the entire nation.
Chairman of the SURE-P board, Dr. Christopher Kolade, had told the senate ad-hoc committee on the programme last week that the Federal Government was remitting N15bn to fund the scheme every month since it was inaugurated in 2012.
Kolade, however, expressed the fears that his board would not be able to meet its obligations to the 111, 000 youths on its payroll as from the end of September due to paucity of funds.
He had argued that the senate reduced its N27bn budget meant for the payment of N10,000 monthly to each of the youths to N9bn but the senators faulted his argument and informed him that the original budget of the programme had been passed alongside the supplementary budget about two months earlier.
– The Punch
