The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, has asserted that the ₦5,000 monthly money disbursements in form of national cash transfer to vulnerable households in Nigeria is actually going a long way in reducing the poverty levels in the country.
The minister made this assertion on Thursday while speaking with State House reporters in reaction to the relevance of the initiative to the Federal Government’s plan to pull out 100 million Nigerians from extreme poverty.
She said; ‘If you look at the people that you are taking this intervention to, ₦5,000 means a lot to them because these are poor and vulnerable households and it changes their status, but for you and me, ₦5,000 is not even enough for us to buy recharge card, that’s the difference’.
‘But for these poor people in the communities, you have seen, they were able to save out of that ₦5,000.
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She went on to add that; ‘When people say ₦5000 does not save people, that is an elitist statement, honestly because we’ve had causes to go to the field, and we have seen these people that when you give them this ₦5,000, they cried and shed tears because they’ve never seen ₦5,000 in their lives. So, it goes a long way, it changes their status and by that, it lifts them from one stage to another.’
The Minister also spoke about the out-of-school children, giving the figures as over 10 million.
While noting there are now 46 million Nigerians on the National social register, she believes that the conditional 5,000 naira intervention strategy to the poor and vulnerable has indeed assisted in lifting more Nigerians out of poverty.
On the exit programme for N-Power Programme, the minister affirmed that government has a plan of putting about 300,000 applicants on a training programme while the Central Bank of Nigeria will provide them loan.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK