About 99.9% of poor and vulnerable Nigerian households that are targeted for the monthly N25, 000 cash handout, have yet to get it.
Times reports that data from the World Bank’s lead Economist for Nigeria, Alex Sienaert, was presented last week in Abuja.
The Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, an initiative of the President Bola Tinubu enjoys a funding support of $800 million from the World Bank.
The programme is intended to assist 15 million Nigerian poor households but anticipated to reach 5 million households by the end of December. Sienaert said only 1.5 million households had received the money .
He said: “Merely 0.1% of the anticipated families have received payment, as only 1.5 million of the targeted 15 million households have been paid for.”
Recall that in October, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation Betta Edu said that the Federal Government would launch the conditional cash transfer policy for 15 million households on October 17th, 2023.
She spoke when she was featured on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics months after the Federal Government stopped the payment of subsidies on petroleum.
“With the approval from the President which we hope to get this week, on the 17th of October, we will be officially launching the conditional cash transfer to 15m households in Nigeria,” the minister said.
According to her, the ministry is working with stakeholders across the country to get a credible register of beneficiaries.
“As we speak, we are having a verification exercise. Every state can bear us witness that we have put boots on the ground – persons who are working with the state cash transfer office as well as the governors who are the heads of the steering committee and then several other persons,” she said.
“All of this is to be sure those who are on the national social register truly are Nigerians who fall [spend] within the under $1.95 a day [range] and they deserve to have it,” the minister added.
While admitting that some persons on the register may have died or moved up the economic ladder, Mrs. Betta said the verification exercise is to clean up the register.“So, two things. First, as we speak, we are on the field cleaning up that data and doing a complete verification and we are juxtaposing both the BVN, NIM and the rest of it to identify these people and be sure we are dealing with authentic persons,” the 36-year-old said.
“And then, of course, there is biometrics to it and you have a capturing of the head of the household as well as a picture of the household so it can be located. On each of these households, they are numbered so people can go there and verify against the register.”