Six million Nigerians receive cash transfers in six months — Minister

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, has revealed that six million Nigerians have benefited from the Federal Government’s Conditional Cash Transfer programme within the past six months.

Yilwatda made the disclosure on Thursday while addressing beneficiaries of the ongoing Skills-to-Wealth (S2W) training programme in Jos.

The minister noted that only two million Nigerians had benefited from the CCT programme over the previous nine years but explained that the ministry has since adopted a new, more efficient approach.

“Previously, only two million people benefited from the conditional cash transfer scheme, which means that over nine years, just 200,000 people were supported annually

We are currently digitising all households on the social register, providing them with digital identities, creating e-wallet accounts, and conducting physical verification.

“We have removed numerous erroneous entries from the social register—those we could neither verify nor identify.

“In just six months, we have reached six million people, averaging one million beneficiaries per month,” he stated

The minister further disclosed that 15 million Nigerians are expected to be enrolled in the programme by October.

“The President is committed to supporting 15 million households before October.

He has directed that these funds be disbursed to beneficiaries within nine months,” Yilwatda explained.

He also highlighted that the ministry engaged the World Bank to independently verify the programme’s beneficiaries.

“After disbursing funds to the first four million people, I requested the World Bank to deploy an independent team to verify the recipients.

“We wanted to ensure the accuracy of our efforts, and the results confirmed that those paid were indeed on the social register.

“The verification team visited beneficiaries’ homes and met 96 per cent of them in person.

The remaining four per cent who could not be verified reside in hard-to-reach areas or have migrated due to insecurity,” he added.

Regarding the Skills-to-Wealth programme, the minister explained that it aims to empower Nigerian youths in three key sectors: agriculture, renewable energy, and automobile.

(NAN)