Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq, The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social
Development, says urban poor dwellers with an
account balance of N5,000 or less will be among the beneficiaries of
the Federal Government Conditional Cash Transfer scheme.
She made this known when she fielded questions from State
House correspondents in Abuja on Tuesday, April 14. She added
that Nigerians who buy N100 call credit are also people who will be
considered poor and vulnerable and will be allowed to benefit from the
scheme.
The minister, who earlier confirmed that N-Power beneficiaries were
being paid their stipends, stated on Tuesday that the prospective
beneficiaries would be part of the additional one million households
approved by President Muhammadu Buhari to boost the nation’s social
register.
President Buhari had on Monday, in a broadcast, directed that the
current social register be expanded from 2.6 million households to 3.6
million households in the next two weeks.
The president said that the expansion of the social register was part
of the palliative measures to address the hardship being experienced by
the poor and vulnerable members of the society as a result of the
extension of the lockdown order.
The minister, who had earlier updated the president on the activities
of her ministry, revealed that those saddled with the responsibility of
carrying out president’s directive on expansion of the social register
would focus more on the urban poor.
She said: “You are also aware that Mr President in his broadcast
yesterday (April 13) has directed that we expand the beneficiaries of
the Conditional Cash Transfer by one million.
“In this regard, we are going to focus more on the urban poor. These
are people who depend on informal sector to earn their livelihood – They
are daily wage earners and these are people we are really going to
focus more on as well as people living with disabilities.”
The minister further explained that apart from the National Social
Register, the Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) and previous record of
purchase of recharge card by mobile phone owners would form parts of
criteria in identifying the beneficiaries of the cash transfer.
She said: “We are also using the mobile network, people that top up
their phones with maybe N100, N200. These are the people we consider to
be poor and vulnerable.”
Nigerians have expressed displeasure with the methods the federal
government has employed in the disbursement of cash and food items.
Also, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) criticized President Muhammadu
Buhari for “failure to provide palliatives” to cushion the effect of the
COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria
