President Buhari Increases Npower Budget by N365 Billion

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the increase of the budget of the Social Investment Scheme, Npower, by N365 Billion.

Buhari disclosed this while discussing deliberate actions taken to expand the nation’s fiscal budget for 2021.

This is included in the 2021 Budget which provides for aggregate expenditures of 13.588 Trillion Naira, representing an increase of 505.61 Billion Naira over the initial Executive proposal.

Buhari highlighted this in a Twitter post on Friday, announcing that the increase was to mitigate the adverse impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Nigeria’s economy and the Government’s revenues.

Yesterday, I assented to the 2021 Appropriation Act and the Finance Act 2020. The 2021 Budget provides for aggregate expenditures of 13.588 Trillion Naira, representing an increase of 505.61 Billion Naira over the initial Executive proposal. pic.twitter.com/4cLgURloBi

— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) January 1, 2021

The Nigeria social Investment Program includes a series of government skill acquisition programs aimed at reducing poverty through tech skills training and quality job placement.

The modular programs under N-Power will ensure that each participant will learn and practice most of what is necessary to find or create work. The N-Power Volunteer Corp involves a massive deployment of 500,000 trained graduates who will assist to improve the inadequacies in Nigeria’s public services in education, health and civic education. Some of these graduates will also help in actualizing Nigeria’s economic and strategic aspirations of achieving food security and self-sufficiency.

N-Power will also be a platform for diversifying the economy. N-Power is preparing young Nigerians for a knowledge economy where equipped with world-class skills and certification, they become innovators and movers in the domestic and global markets. Nigeria will have a pool of software developers, hardware service professionals, animators, graphic artists, building services professionals, artisans and others. N-Power also focuses on providing the country’s non-graduates with relevant technical and business skills that enhance their work outlook and livelihood.

Earlier in December, President Buhari announced the increase of N-Power beneficiaries from the initial 500, 000 to 1,000,000 beneficiaries.