Aso Villa Reads for Fri. 20/11/2020
Every day, we bring you the best stories that the Media is reporting about the Government of Nigeria
The federal government has disbursed a total of N66.5 billion (USD$175 million) to eligible states under the Amended COVID-19 Responsive 2020 Budget results. The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning,Mrs. Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, who disclosed this in a statement released in Abuja, Wednesday by the ministry’s Director of Press and Public Relations, Mr. Hassan Dodo, explained that the disbursement followed compliance to the Amended COVID-19 Responsive 2020 Budget by 35 eligible states in the country. According to the minister, each benefiting state received a total sum of N1.9 billion (an equivalent of $5 million). [This Day]
As part of efforts to eliminate cervical cancer by 2030, the federal government in collaboration with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) has announced plans to implement a Secondary Prevention of Cervical Cancer project with awareness, screening and treatment of precancerous lesions of 430,000 women in three states. Osagie Ehanire, Minister of health who said this in Abuja informed that the project which is UNITAID-funded will kick off in Kaduna, Lagos and Rivers states in the pilot phase over the next 18 months, adding that the training of different categories of health care workers has begun. [Business Day]
The Federal Government has proposed to grant tax relief to companies that donated to the COVID-19 relief fund under the private sector coalition, CACOVID. The government also has proposed exemption of small companies from payment of education tax under the Tertiary Education Trust fund, TETFUND-companies with less than N25 million turnover are eligible. This is as the government yesterday presented the Finance Bill 2020 which was approved by the Federal Executive Council, FEC, to the National Economic Council, NEC. [Vanguard]
The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, says the Federal Government is committed to supporting developmental strides in university teaching hospitals and other health institutions in the country. Ehanire said this at the inauguration of some landmark projects at University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) on Thursday. The projects include modern Physical Rehabilitation Centre (PRC) built for UMTH by International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for rehabilitation of physically challenged patients; 150-bed capacity trauma centre, School of Nursing Hostel, UMTH auditorium and General Outpatient Complex. [Vanguard]
The federal government, Thursday, inaugurated a committee to work out modalities for revitalization of teaching profession. The development was sequel to recent increment and other mouthwatering offers to teachers by President Muhammad Buhari during the 2020 World Teachers’ Day Celebration in Abuja. This inauguration kick starts the processes to implement the new policies recently pronounced by President Muhammadu Buhari, aimed at attracting the best brains into the teaching profession, encourage teachers delivery, and produce quality students with capacity to boost national development. Some of the policies includes; special teacher salary scale, harmonized retirement age and teaching service years, special teacher pension scheme, creation of career path policy, enhanced entry points for teachers in civil service and provision of certain allowances. [Vanguard]
As the implementation of its Economic Sustainability Plan, ESP, continues, and in furtherance of its commitment to support small businesses to cushion the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Buhari administration has commenced payment to beneficiaries of the payroll support scheme track under the MSME Survival Fund. So far, 101,567 verified employees drawn from 16,250 businesses have received their first monthly payment from the Survival Fund’s Payroll Support Scheme, which is designed to support vulnerable MSMEs by paying the salaries of their staff for a period of three months. Verification is still ongoing as the payroll support scheme targets supporting 500,000 beneficiaries with payment of up to N50,000 per employee during the duration of 3 months, starting from October. [Vanguard]
The Federal Government is currently acquiring more than 720,000 hectares of land from various states for agricultural use, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Sabo Nanono, said on Thursday. He said his ministry was securing between 20,000 and 100,000 hectares of land in each state “for agricultural use, and promoting agro and agro-allied cluster activities nationwide.” [Punch]
The three tiers of government shared a total of N604bn in the month of October 2020, the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee has said. FAAC disclosed this in a communique it issued in Abuja after its meeting chaired by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Aliyu Ahmed. Out of the N604bn, the Federal Government received N220.751n, states got N161.8bn, while the Local Government Areas got N120.58bn. The communique stated that the oil-producing states received N31.9bn as 13 per cent derivation. [Punch]
The Federal Government has released N5.2bn to build houses to accommodate victims of Boko Haram insurgency in troubled Borno State, the governor of the State, Prof. Babagana Zulum, has revealed. The governor, who spoke during an assessment tour of 1,000 housing units for returning internally displaced persons at the outskirts of Maiduguri, said the money released by the Federal Government was for the building of 10,000 houses for 1.7m IDPs expected to return to their communities. [Punch]
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