By Luka Binniyat
ABUJA  —  The Office of the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, yesterday said so far, about N1.04 trillion had been spent on the scheme since 2006.

The MDGs office also claimed that as part of the success archived under the project, about  90 per cent of all children under school age are now happily attending school.

This was made known by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on MDGs, Hajia Amina Zubairu, in Abuja at a  public hearing organised by the  House of Representatives, on assessing the implementation of MDGs in Nigeria.

According to Zubairu, since 2006, Nigerian has been receiving $1 billion (N150 billion) from the Paris Club as debt-relief, of which  the Federal Government takes  $750 million (N112.50 billion) and the 36  states $250 million (N37.5 billion)

That means that since 2006, the Paris Club has expended about $4 billion on Nigeria MDGs projects

Chairman, House of Representatives Committee of MDGs, Rep. Saduatu Sani, in addition to the Paris Club debt relief fund, said in the past four years, the MDGs enjoyed an annual budgetary allocation of N110 billion, bringing the total to N440 billion in 2010.

According to Zubairu, the MDGs would need more money if it must meet the 2015 target.

She, however, said the programme had led to making 90 per cent of all Nigerian children within the primary and secondary schools ages enrolling in school.

According to her, “11.6 million  Nigerian school children are benefitting from better quality instructions from over 200,000 teachers retrained through MDGs.

“Twenty million Nigerians have better access to water as a result of various MDGs water projects across the country and infant mortality rate has dropped by 30 per cent.

“Even though Nigeria is yet out of the woods, the rate of HIV/AIDS has largely been halted, thanks to MDGs.”

“Success rate in implementation of MDGs projects  in states was about 85 per cent in 2008 in spite of many challenges which come with the implementation of  the MDGs in all 774 councils in Nigeria, the performance level has been consistently and significantly been higher that that of the federal budget.

“Through the work we are doing, many remote communities across the country, some which have never experienced any form of real development, now have access to primary heath care centres, boreholes, classroom and so on.”

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Dimeji Bankole, who declared the hearing opened, noted that many had expressed doubt on the ability of the MDGs office to meet the targeted date of 2015.

“Even while we are worried about concerns recently expressed by the Office of the MDGs about the slow pace in meeting some of the goals, we nonetheless believe that the targets are achievable,” he said.