By Lekan Adejuwon
Halima Shehu, the national coordinator/chief executive officer of the National Social Investment Programmes Agency (NSIPA), says there are different categories of Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) that will be disbursed to vulnerable and low income households across the country.
She said enrollees of the first category of the conditional cash transfer would receive ₦5,000 each, as part of the efforts by the federal government to alleviate poverty.
The other category, she stated, is described as ‘livelihood’ where beneficiaries will receive ₦150,000 each to start a small or medium scale business after they must have undergone vocational training.
Mrs Shehu stated these when she appeared before the Senate on Wednesday for screening.
The upper chamber confirmed her as the pioneer national coordinator/chief executive officer of NSIPA.
“While all the poor and vulnerable have been enrolled into the programme, they are entitled to ₦5000. The next component of the programme is not for every household; the households have to enroll into a core responsibility before they are entitled into this programme and that is the part that completely alleviates the poor and vulnerable out of poverty.
“The next component is the livelihood, still under conditional cash transfer, the livelihood is a one-off grant of ₦150,000 and the household that have keyed into the skill acquisition will inspect periodically, the kind of businesses made and every household is supposed to spend three years on the programme and to be exited in three years by giving the one-off livelihood grant. This is to say we have completely moved you out of where we found you,” she said.
The National Assembly had in July given the federal government approval to obtain the controversial $800 million loan from the World Bank to provide palliative for the most vulnerable Nigerians over the harsh effects of the removal of petroleum subsidy.
President Bola Tinubu‘s request for the approval confirmed his determination to sustain the conditional cash transfer scheme initiated by his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari.
With this loan, the new administration plans to hand out ₦8,000 monthly to 12 million poor and low income households across the country for six months.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, had also promised that the federal government will use biometric validation to transfer the ₦8,000 palliative to identified vulnerable and low income households.
Disbursement of cash
The coordinator said all payments under the initiative of the CCT will be made directly from the Central Bank of Nigeria to the beneficiaries’ bank accounts.
She assured that none of the officials of the agency will come in contact with the fund that will be disbursed to the beneficiaries.
Mrs Shehu further explained that the disbursement of the conditional cash transfer to the beneficiaries will be supervised by development partners and the World Bank for proper transparency and accountability.
She said, “But, I will tell you for a fact, the conditional cash transfer programme, in as much as there are criticisms, I know there are gaps, there are challenges but I will like to tell you that the accountability persons of the various institution, firms and the World Bank is being supervised by the development partners and the world bank.
“And we at the office, we do not come in contact with physical person even when we are doing it except we go to the field. So, the disbursement of the cash starts from the CBN where the account is domiciled through the payment service provided and disbursement is done by the payment service providers. It is where all disbursements are being made.
“Even when we become digitised, there are monitors. The payment service providers will come back to the bank and a team of reconciliation of all these banks will come together to reconcile what has been paid and what has not been paid, and exact unpaid balances will be remitted back to the CBN account. This is how transparent the conditional cash transfer is.”
N -Power beneficiaries
Mrs Shehu noted that the N-power empowerment initiative of the federal government was designed to benefit each enrollee for two years.
“The N-power does not target the poorest, it targets graduates and non-graduates. That programme is supposed to be for two years it is assumed that by two years, those youths will have gotten another job and they will be exited.
“For the involvement enterprise empowerment programme, it is a program that targets small and medium scale entrepreneurs from ₦50,000 to ₦300,000 mostly those people that live in the urban areas. It was just launched in August 2021.
“And the Homegrown school feeding targets pupils of public school from primary one to primary three to be fed during school sessions,” she said.
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