No fewer than 10, 800 persons that would benefit from the Federal Government’s Cash Transfer Scheme in Kwara were drawn from the National Register for Poor and Vulnerable Households, an official, has said.
Hajia Aminat Yahaya-Bagudu, Head of Unit of the scheme said the register, compiled in 2013 for Youth Empowerment and Social Support Operation, was adopted by the Federal Government for the Cash Transfer Scheme in 2015.
Yahaya-Badugu, who stated this at the Kwara Stakeholders’ Forum/Meeting on Special Intervention Projects, Strategies and Implementation, said politician did not hijack the process as being rumoured.
“Nobody envisaged that the data collection could be used for this scheme at that time.
“10, 301 of the expected 10, 800 had been enrolled for the scheme in which some have started receiving the money while 114 beneficiaries that were sensitized earlier for the scheme, had either died or migrated from the communities where they were captured.
“12 Local Governments are currently covered for the scheme but the list of beneficiaries from other four Local governments will be ready by February.
“The modalities for selecting the beneficiaries were transparent and had no political colouration,’’ she said.
Earlier in his overview of Federal Government’s Special Intervention Programmes (SIP) activities in Kwara, Mr Ayobola Samuel, said that 5, 535 people were enrolled into the N-Power programme in the state.
Samuel, who is the Focal Person for SIP in the state, noted that each of the N-Power beneficiaries would receive a monthly pay of N30, 000, which translates into N166 million monthly.
He said that the 10, 800 poor and vulnerable households would each receive N5, 000 monthly.
“Other programmes that the state will benefit from include, Home Grown School Feeding Programme, STEM Bursary programme for students of tertiary institutions and Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme,’’ he said.
Meanwhile, Gov. Abdulfatah Ahmed in his message applauded the federal government for coming up with various social intervention programmes to tackle poverty and unemployment.
Ahmed, represented by the Commissioner for Planning and Economic Development, Alhaji Wasiu Odewale said the programmes conformed with the shared prosperity agenda of the state.
He pledged the state government support towards successful implementation of the special intervention programmes in the state. (NAN)