By Ike Uchechukwu

About 50 independent monitors weekend received engagement letters and tablets to enable them properly check the activities of beneficiaries of federal government’s poverty reduction programme under the social investment scheme in Cross River.

Speaking in Calabar during the distribution of engagement letters and tablets to 49 persons that will monitor the programme in Cross River, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq urged them to make good and effective use of the smart devices.

Sadiya Umar Farouq, represented by, Director Human Resource Management, Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Babatunde Jaji said that in an effort to achieve the set goals and objectives of the programme, the ministry decided to train and equip individuals as well as put a monitoring mechanism in place to make the programme effective.

The minister maintained that the engagement of Independent Monitors for NSIP is one of the strategies put in place to ensure that the programmes achieved the desired results at the end of the day.

“While the engagement of Independent Monitors is not new, the Ministry has methodically reviewed the modalities and design of previous engagements to build more robust and proactive strategies to monitor the Programmes.

“I urge the all the independent monitors to do everything within their capacity to ensure that adequate supervision is given to benefiaries of the federal government’s poverty reduction programme in their localities,” Farouq said.

She enjoined the independent monitors to monitor them in schools, households and market clusters on a routine basis, using standardized reporting tools which had been made available in hard and electronic copies adding that such initiative will help measure the impact of the Programme.

The Minister hinted that each independent monitor will be given a unique user ID and Password to gain access to the platform to enable them enter data and the M&E team of the Ministry .

Speak furtger ,she added that the State Programme Team will monitor the platform to determine if the Independent Monitors are collecting timely, complete and correct data.

She said that the initiative was to meet up with Mr. President’s plan of taking one hundred million persons out from poverty in Nigeria.