Two million people will start receiving about N20bn from June this year as basic cash transfers and conditional cash transfers under the National Cash Transfer Programme, the Federal Government has said.
It was gathered that the Federal Government would pay the two million people N5,000 each under the basic cash transfer and an additional N5,000 under the conditional cash transfer. This implies that the government would be spending N20bn on the beneficiaries.
A March 2022 document on the strategic roadmap and activities of the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, obtained by our correspondent in Abuja on Sunday, showed that the number of people receiving cash transfers from the government had been increasing.
The report stated that in 2018, a total of 19 states were covered under the National Cash Transfer Programme, as this increased to 24 states in 2019 and moved up to 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory in 2022, covering 1.6 million people.
But the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, stated in the document that the number would increase further in June. Under the cash transfer scheme, the Federal Government supports poor and vulnerable households with cash on a monthly basis.
“By June 2022 we would be paying two million people N5,000 basic cash transfer and an additional N5,000 on conditional cash transfers, which is conditioned on good health-seeking/behaviour, school retention, and good water and hygiene conditions in their environment/homes,” Farouq stated.
She explained that the ministry designed and piloted a shock-responsive social register, called the Rapid Response Register to capture urban poor informal workers, who were daily wage earners, working across towns and cities, and impacted by the COVID-19 lockdown.
The minister said, “To date, of this one million targeted by the government, we have been able to pay the sum of N5000 to 850,000 beneficiaries digitally through the Nigeria Inter-bank Settlement System, where each account is carefully validated.