The federal government yesterday flagged-off the N20,000 cash grants social investment programme to assist vulnerable groups in Anambra State.
The exercise was performed by the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, who was represented by a deputy director in the Ministry, Mr. Charles Anaelo.
The Minister said the programme was designed to specifically give a lifting hand to many of the poorest and vulnerable citizens in the country, adding that it is being implemented in close partnership with state governments.
According to her, the programme, which was introduced in 2020, was aimed at sustaining the social inclusion agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration on the poor, which, she added, was consistent with his compassionate and deliberate national agenda of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years.
She said: “It is designed to provide a one-off cash grant of N20,000.00 to the poorest and most vulnerable Nigerians in rural and semi-urban areas across the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory. “Our target in Anambra State is to disburse the grant to 3,222 beneficiaries across the 21 local government areas in the state.
“It is worthy to note that 70% of these beneficiaries must be women, while the remaining 30% is for youths.
“Mr. President has further directed that at least 15% of the total number of beneficiaries must specifically be allocated to citizens with special needs, including Persons With Disability (PWDs) and senior citizens in the state.”
She also rolled out the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), which was designed for vulnerable and low-income Nigerians involved in some form of commercial activity, but have never had the opportunity to access loans.
“It is meant to give priority to the most vulnerable in our society such as widows, youths, disabled and the displaced, amongst others.
“GEEP is captured in three signature schemes namely the TraderMoni loan of N50,000, targeted towards uplifting under-privileged and marginalized youths between the ages of 18-40 years in Nigeria; MarketMoni which is an empowerment programme designed for under privileged and marginalized women in our society, specifically targeted towards widows, divorcees and other vulnerable groups; as well as FarmerMoni loan scheme which is equally designed to provide agricultural inputs worth up to a maximum of N300,000 to rural farmers.
“The GEEP has been restructured to have a top-bottom representation from the federal, state and local government levels respectively. “In the first phase of GEEP programme, about 1,142,783 potential beneficiaries were registered across the 774 LGAs in Nigeria, out of which 5,537 potential beneficiaries were registered in Anambra State across the 21 LGAs after which verification was done and about 903 beneficiaries were selected.
“These selected beneficiaries are currently undergoing enumeration and successful beneficiaries will start receiving credit alert from their banks immediately,” the Minister said.