MDGs: FG commits N5b to alleviate poverty

The Federal Government on Tuesday said it has committed N5 billion to the Conditional Cash Transfer scheme aimed at alleviating poverty and accelerating progress towards the attainment of Millennium Development Goals as 2015 draws nearer.
The CCT programme, the government said, is specifically targeted at addressing the needs of qualified core poor households to enable them have access to funds that will improve their lives and that of their children.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on MDGs, Dr. Precious Kalamba Gbeneol, made this known in Abuja at this year’s Training and Sensitisation Workshop for the Scale up of OSSAP-MDGs’ Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme.
Gbeneol noted that despite achievements recorded in some of the MDGs in Nigeria, the recent report of the national Bureau of Statistics has indicated that a lot still needs to be done in the area of bridging the inequality gap.
This triggered response from government in strategically working towards minimising inequality and stimulating economic growth among the rural poor.
She said: “This CCT scale up is designed primarily to help fast-track progress in the health and education sectors.
“The programme seeks to stimulate an increase in the rate of school enrolment and access to healthcare.
“The intervention has been strategically designed to provide cash grants to extreme poor households as a form of investment in human capital development.
“The CCT shall insist on households allowing their children or wards to enroll in school and remain in school.
“This year, my office is committing the sum of N5 billion to the CCT scale up from the Debt Relief Grants, which will be matched by an equal sum by all participating states for the generation of a total sum of N10 billion.
“This will enable interventions in about 56,250 households within a year.
Gbeneol said whilst implementing the CCT, the strategy will place the sub-national governments in the driver’s seat, thereby making it a bottom-top approach.
The SSAP-MDGs reiterated that a lot of effort has gone into modifying the implementation methodology so as to derive massive impact.
“Each of the households will be entitled to a monthly grant of N5,000 and N100,000 in lump at the end of one year to start a trade,” Gbeneol said.
She explained that the CCT scheme offers a win-win situation for both government and the benefiting poor households, as it has the potential to help reduce crime, promote high literacy in rural populations and increase consumption as it stimulates an increase in economic activities.
Delivering his goodwill message, the Chairman Senate Committee on MDGs, Senator Ali Ndume, stressed that the programme is a very important and effective vehicle for alleviating hunger and poverty as the country is striving to tackle the problem of insecurity, which is a product of poverty.
Ndume therefore applauded the strategy of targeting female-headed households whom he said are very dedicated farmers and are inclined to care for their children more.
He advised the participants from various states to be God fearing in executing the programme.
“Don’t take CCT to your friends or relatives and disburse it to the people you know, because achieving the goal we are targeting, starts from you the implementors,” he said.