At least 19.8 million poor Nigerians are listed on the Federal Government’s social register, designed to support cash transfers to beneficiaries.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Nentawe Yilwatda, revealed this during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily yesterday. He also noted that certain politicians were attempting to influence individuals on the register to benefit from the government’s conditional cash transfer program.
He, however, said though 19.8 million poor Nigerians were captured on the nation’s social register to qualify for social safety funds, only the identities of 1.2 million poor Nigerians had been validated by the government.
He said: “Currently, we have a social register; we have 19.8 people on the social register but when you have a list, you need to validate that list.
“For now, the people that have been validated are only about 1.2 million people. We need to validate the entire register, so we can get the actual people who are supposed to benefit from it, authenticate their locations; their houses where they are, and capture on GPS location — the location of their homes.
“This is to be sure they exist and be sure that these people are as poor as they claim because there are social indices for judging poverty, such as access to water, access to health, access to education, and access to economic facilities, so you can now pick the poorest of the poor in the society.”
The minister said some persons wanted his ministry to bend for political reasons but noted that “unfortunately it’s a partnership between us and the international community – the World Bank is involved, CSOs (civil society organisations) are involved and it’s not just a ministry’s activity.
“Some people want us to bend and allow the governors or the states to just generate the list and send. It’s a conditional transfer; conditions are attached to qualifying to benefit from the social safety net.
“So, we will not bend to allowing any political affiliation or attachment to this conditional cash transfer. Poverty doesn’t know political party, poverty doesn’t know tribe, poverty doesn’t even understand the grammar we are blowing. A poor person is a poor person.”
The minister announced the suspension of cash transfers and stated that the National Identification Number (NIN) and Bank Verification Number (BVN) are now mandatory for all digital transfers to ensure transparency and facilitate audits.
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