By Gloria Ikibah
The House of Representatives Committee on Community and Social Development/NG-CARES, chaired by Rep. Abubakar Kusada, has instructed the Federal CARES Support Unit to provide detailed financial documentation covering its activities from 2009 through 2021.
The directive was issued during an interactive session with officials from the Nigeria Community Action for Resilience and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) programme on Tuesday in Abuja. 
During the meeting, lawmakers called on NG-CARES to submit comprehensive, state-by-state reports outlining the efforts and outcomes achieved by each state coordinator, particularly in relation to flood response and mitigation.
The committee also discussed operational matters with the programme’s National Coordinator, Dr. Abdulkarim Obaje, emphasizing the need for accurate reconciliation of state-level results before publicly disclosing disbursement figures.
In his remarks, Dr. Obaje acknowledged the committee’s oversight role and noted that the repayment of loans obtained for the initiative has been adversely affected by fluctuations in foreign exchange rates. He revealed that although the loan agreement with the World Bank was valued at $70 million, approximately $2.2 billion has been disbursed across various states under the initiative.
He further clarified that NG-CARES—formerly known as the Nigeria COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus Programme—was developed as a federal government response mechanism aimed at addressing the socioeconomic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and other related shocks.
