By Stephen Adeleye.
The Kogi Government through the Office of the National Social Investment Programmes (Kogi-SIP), said it has concluded plans to commence payment of N20, 000 each to over 60, 000 beneficiaries of the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) across the state.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the CCT is one of the Federal Government’s Social Intervention Programmes with payment of N5,000 monthly to the poor and vulnerable citizens in the country.
The Focal Person of Kogi SIP, Mr. Abdulkareem Suleiman Onyekehi, in a statement in Lokoja on Friday, said the decision was a followup on the recent national broadcast by President Muhammadu Buhari on Federal Government’s palliative measures amidst the Stay At Home directive.
According to Onyekehi, the first phase of payments scheduled to commence from Monday April 6 to Wed. April 22, will cover four months payout of N20,000 (N5000 monthly) each to over 34,000 existing beneficiaries of the CCT across the 21 local government areas of Kogi State.
He added that the next phase of payments would capture another 27,000 people as contained in the fresh data, bringing the total beneficiaries of the CCT to over 60,000 in Kogi State.
Onyekehi noted that the Minister for Humanitarian Affairs took the swift decision following President Buhari’s directive as contained in items 50 and 54 of his national broadcast on Covid-19.
The focal person further said that the school feeding program for pupils of public primary school in Kogi, would commence as soon as the officials of the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) concluded plans for the implementation amidst the lockdown.
Onyekehi said that the school pupils who had been directed to stay off school since the outbreak of Covid-19 in Nigeria would continue to enjoy the feeding programme through delivery of meals in a community based model at wards level in coordinated distancing clusters under close supervision and monitoring.
“Safety measures including the use of hand sanitizers will be observed at the designated payment and food delivery points with strict adherence to social distancing as outlined in the WHO’s safety guidelines to combating the spread of the virus among people as beneficiaries receive their payouts from next week.
“The continuation of the CCT and school feeding programmes amidst the lockdown order by the federal government is to relieve vulnerable citizens of the hardship posed by the stay at home order on their daily survival,” Onyekehi said.
