The Presidency has said that palliatives for the new fuel pricing regime are
contained in the 2016 budget and would start in few weeks’ time.
Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity Laolu
Akande said this in a statement yesterday.
The breakdown:
•The direct payment of N5,000 monthly to one million extremely poor Nigerians
for 12 months as provided for in the 2016 budget for which N68.7bn has been
appropriated.
•The direct provision of very soft loan--cash for market women, men and
traders including artisans and agric workers. This would be for a total of 1.76m
Nigerians, without the requirement for conventional collateral. Some of the
traders will likely get about N60,000. A total sum of N140.3 billion has already
been appropriated for this in the budget
•Payment of between N23,000 to N30,000 per month to 500,000 unemployed
graduates who will be trained, paid and deployed to work as volunteer teachers,
public health officers and extension service workers, among other
responsibilities. They will also be given electronic devices to empower them
technologically both for their assignments and beyond. Similarly, 100,000
artisans will also be trained and paid. N191.5bn has been set aside for this in
the budget.
•At least 5.5 million Nigerian primary school children; starting first in 18 states,
three per geo-political zones; will be fed for 200 school days under the free
school feeding programme.
N93.1bn has been appropriated for this in the 2016 budget.
•100,000 tertiary students in Science Technology Engineering & Maths-STEM,
plus Education will partake in the N5.8bn already provided for this education
grant in the budget. This payment will also be paid directly to the students.

these are all noise