Lagos To Produce Over 8,000 Beneficiaries Of Conditional Cash Transfer Soon
…Trains LG Officials on Grassroots Data Collection
Lagos State Commissioner for Wealth Creation and Employment, Hon. (Mrs.) Yetunde Arobieke on Friday disclosed that over 8,000 beneficiaries of the Conditional Cash Transfer of the Federal Government would soon emerge from the State.
She made this disclosure while speaking at a 4-day training session organized for some officials of selected Local Government Areas across the State on how to collect and collate the data of would-be beneficiaries of the scheme.
The Commissioner commended the Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu for granting approval for the training exercise in spite of the State wide lockdown, stressing that the approval is an attestation to the Governor’s positive disposition to the Conditional Cash Transfer programme.
Arobieke explained that the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme also known as Household Uplifting Programme (HUP) was aimed at bridging the poverty line in the State and provide means for the poor masses to be independently engaged and productive.
The aims and objectives of the initiative according to her is to “reduce poverty, prevent the vulnerable from falling further down poverty line, build resilience to withstand shocks and risk, enhance human capital, promote sustainable livelihoods and protect households from shocks.”
The Commissioner expressed the belief that the programme would further complement the efforts of the State Government at reducing poverty, empowering the residents by producing wealth creators who would continue to increase the economic prosperity of the State and contribute their quota to national developments.
In her words, “this programme has a lot of strong economic implication and spill over effects on the populace because it affects the entire eco-system such that beneficiaries would not only be able to feed their families but would also be able to save money for capital intensive projects.”
Arobieke maintained that the State Government would put a structure in place to ensure that the beneficiaries do not only get the financial aid from the federal government but also invest the grant into profitable ventures that would have return on investments.
She pleaded with Lagosians in general to cooperate with the local government officials across the various Local Government Areas in the State by providing true and correct information to the officials.
She emphasised that, “What we have observed over time is that when programmes like this come up, residents usually provide untrue information about themselves and this had disqualified several persons from some benefitting in initiatives similar to this that’s why I’m pleading that information to be provided should be such that gives true and verifiable.”
The Commissioner charged the officials of the various LGAs at the training to liaise with royal fathers, CDAs and CDCs and other opinion leaders in their various domains about the programme so that members of the communities could be mobilized to embrace the initiative.
She added that the Budget departments at the Local Government levels should liaise with the State Budget Ministry to generate registers, take records of households and individual beneficiaries approved and all other processes that needs to be followed before the actual disbursement of the cash.
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