The Federal Government has disbursed N20, 000 to 5,000 beneficiaries in Kwali Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja under its Conditional Cash Transfer, CCT, scheme.
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The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadia Umar-Farouq, on Wednesday, supervised the disbursement.
AS part of efforts to help citizens cope with the fallout of coronavirus, Mrs Umar-Farouq said the disbursement was one of the measures authorised by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Other measures include a moratorium on repayment of certain Federal Government-funded facilities to the Nigerian public.
President Buhari had, on Sunday, ordered the three-month moratorium on government-funded loans from institutions such as the Bank Of Industry and Nigerian Export-Import Bank to beneficiaries of schemes such as TraderMoni, MarketMoni and FarmerMoni beneficiaries.
The spokesperson for the cash transfers programme office, Henry Ayede, revealed that the N20, 000 covers four months’ stipends for the beneficiaries from January to April.
Ayede, said: “The federal government has not paid the beneficiaries from January till March, but following the president’s order on Sunday, the ministry decided to pay in April in view of the lockdown directives.”
The gesture, it was gathered, is aimed at providing relief for the impact of COVID-19 on the Nigerian economy.
The Conditional Cash Transfer, CCT, programme was introduced in 2016 as part of President Buhari’s Social Investment Programme, SIP. The programme involves payment of N5, 000 monthly, paid bi-monthly, to the poorest Nigerians, mostly in rural communities.
The disbursement, according to the minister, is to help in reducing the effect of the lockdown ordered by the president in Abuja and Lagos over the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, Ms Farouk, during the flag-off said the Federal Government would be giving out N20, 000 per recipient in Abuja for the next four months starting from March.
She said: “We have directed immediate cash transfer to the poorest and most vulnerable households in the country.
“Because of this COVID-19, the vulnerable groups have to expand, because we are aware that there are people who live on daily wage, so we are also going to look at those groups of people to see how we can get this food relief intervention to them in this period.”
