President Goodluck Jonathan has released N5 Billion to commence Conditional Cash Transfer scheme to about 56,500 vulnerable women in the country.
The scheme is one of the social safety nets designed to achieve Goals 1 and 3 of the Millennium Development Goals to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger as well as promote Gender Equality and Empower Women.
The Senior Special Assistant on Millennium Development Goals, MDGs to the President, Dr Precious Kalamba Gbeneol, at the national launch in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State capital, said all the beneficiaries of the scheme would be entitled to a monthly stipend of N5,000 for the next one year and would be given N100,000 each for investment in agriculture related enterprise.
President Jonathan noted that a sum of N370 million will be disbursed to 2,250 women who are vulnerable in Ekiti, carefully selected in five Local Government Councils of the state.
Mr. President pointed out that this is the first electronically computed CCT in Nigeria in partnership with the World Bank and Eco Bank. He added that biometrics of the beneficiaries would give a smooth room that has been noticed in the disbursement of the fund.
He said, “This programme is no longer coming from Abuja because a lot of delay and sharp practices were noticed. Now, every state will now compile the list of the beneficiaries because all the states know where the poor people live.
With this fund, the target of the federal government is that about 224,000 school children will be rescued from dropping out of schools because the fund is meant to tackle maternal and child mortality in Nigeria.
Poverty in Nigeria is multidimensional and it has to be tackled from all fronts. That is why the Federal Government is engaging in intergovernmental collaboration to tackle poverty in Nigeria”.