By Omoh Gabriel LAGOS —
There
are indications that the list of beneficiaries of the Federal
Government’s N5,000 conditional cash transfer for eight states is ready.
our5kFeelers from political and World Bank Country office in Nigeria
have shown that the list for the conditional transfer has been in the
making.
The World Bank, it was learned, has used its
template that it applies globally to help the federal authorities
identify the poor and needy in the eight states while work is said to be
in progress in other states of the federation.
The feelers
suggest that the team compiling the list in each state goes to two
poorest local governments in a state and then identify the two poorest
villages or communities in such state.
From the poorest
community, a list is drawn. One million poor Nigerians will benefit from
the programme. The feeler is that the compilation is in collaboration
with the World Bank, which had even started compiling a Social Register
before the current administration came on board.
According to
those, who have working knowledge of the programme, eight states of the
federation have already been covered and that the criteria to determine
beneficiaries have been clearly spelt out.
They include: school
enrolment by the parents of school-age children; immunization of
children against child-killer diseases as well as the aged and disabled
poor. It was learned that the programme would run throughout the period
of the administration’s life.
It was gathered that contrary to
widely held opinions in some quarters, the N5,000 monthly stipend
programme has not been cancelled by the Buhari administration. The
source clarified that while some people held that the Federal Government
was to pay N5,000 monthly to graduates, the graduates’ scheme would be
the recruitment of 500,000 volunteer teachers, who would be paid N30,000
monthly.
“The graduates’ volunteer programme would run for two
years, with the expectation that the volunteers would be able to secure
other jobs as the economy throws up new opportunities,” the source said.
In addition, he said that the administration’s Micro-credit
scheme for small businesses would act as a game-changer in the Micro,
Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) subsector of the economy. Under
that scheme, a revolving loans fund would be made available
to
Nigerian youths who wants to go into small business as well as those
already in business, to enable them expand their operations. Nigeria is
one of the top five countries with the largest number of poor, ranking
third, with China and India, ranking second and first respectively.
Majority of Nigeria’s desperately poor never had the opportunity to
attend a school, nor receive some form of education, whether formal or
informal. The Buhari administration is keying into the World Bank advice
to nations last April.
It will be recalled that the World Bank
President, Jim Yong Kim, had said at last year’s IMF/World Bank Spring
Meetings that Nigeria is one of the top five countries that has the
largest number of poor. Nigeria, he said ranked third in the world while
India ranked number one with 33 per cent of the world poor. China is
ranked second with 13 per cent of the world’s poor, followed by Nigeria
where seven per cent of the world poor live in.
He said that
Bangladesh has six per cent share of the world’s poor while the
Democratic Republic of Congo has five per cent of the world’s poor
population. Jim Yong Kim said these five countries are home to 760
million of the world’s poor, adding that another five countries,
Indonesia, Pakistan, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Kenya would encompass almost
80 per cent of the extreme poor.
World Bank had said that a
sharp focus on these will be central to ending poverty, the “while
economic growth remains vital for reducing poverty, growth has its
limits, according to a new World Bank paper. Countries need to
complement efforts to enhance growth with policies that allocate more
resources to the extreme poor. These resources can be distributed
through the growth process itself, by promoting more inclusive growth,
or through government programs, such as conditional and direct cash
transfers. Direct cash transfers “It is imperative not just to lift
people out of extreme poverty; it is also important to make sure that,
in the long run, they do not get stuck just above the extreme poverty
line due to a lack of opportunities that might impede progress toward
better livelihoods.
Economic growth has been vital for reducing
extreme poverty and improving the lives of many poor people. Yet, even
if all countries grow at the same rates as over the past 20 years, and
if the income distribution remains unchanged, world poverty will only
fall by 10 percent by 2030, from 17.7 percent in 2010. This is simply
not enough, and we need a laser like focus on making growth more
inclusive and targeting more programmes to assist the poor directly if
we’re going to end extreme poverty.” Kim added: “To end extreme poverty,
the vast numbers of the poorest – those earning less than $1.25 a day –
will have to decrease by 50 million people each year until 2030. This
means that one million people each week will have to lift themselves out
of poverty for the next 16 years. This will be extraordinarily
difficult, but I believe we can do it. This can be the generation that
ends extreme poverty. “Growth alone is unlikely to end extreme poverty
by 2030 because as extreme poverty declines, growth on its own tends to
lift fewer people out of poverty.
This is because, by this
stage, many of the people still in extreme poverty live in situations
where improving their lives is extremely difficult. Even if there is no
change in inequality, the “poverty-reducing power” of economic growth is
less in countries that are initially more unequal.” The transfer will
go directly to the beneficiary.
The President it was gathered
has instructed that there should be no third party arrangement in the
transfer process. The technology to effect the payment is being worked
out.
President Muhammadu Buhari is said to be very passionate
about social investments by his administration among the ordinary
Nigerians who were mainly responsible for his election and would not do
anything to jeopardize their confidence in him.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/04/fgs-n5000-conditional-cash-transfer-list-8-states-ready/
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