From Isma’il Adamu (Katsina)
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Saafiya Umar-Faruk has flagged off the distribution of cash grant to 6,800 rural women in Katsina State.
At the occasion, the Minister explained that beneficiaries for the program were vulnerable women from the 34 Local Government Areas of the state.
She explained that the cash grant was to serve as business capital for the women, in order to cushion the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on their households.
Hajiya Saadiya Faruk noted that one-third of the beneficiaries were women with disabilities, while two-thirds were widows, women from internally displaced families, and other less privileged from across the state.
She explained that 3 cash distribution points had been designated, one in each senatorial zone of the state to ease distribution of the grants to beneficiaries.
Similarly, the Minister disclosed that N9.5 billion has so far been disbursed as conditional grant to 142,000 poor and vulnerable households in Katsina State since the inception of the program.
She said President Muhammadu Buhari had given approval for the expansion of the Social Register to accommodate more poor and vulnerable Nigerians in the conditional cash transfer scheme towards lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty by the year 2030.
Earlier in a remark, Governor Aminu Bello Masari of Katsina State, represented by his Deputy, Alhaji Mannir Yakubu noted that since inception, the Conditional Cash Transfer scheme had lifted thousands of households out of poverty in the state.
He urged women who benefitted from the cash grant, particularly widows and women living with disabilities, to make judicious use of the money.
Earlier, Special Adviser to the Governor on Economic Empowerment, Alhaji AbdulQadir Nasir disclosed that the school feeding component of the program had employed over 10,000 women as cooks in the state.
He said the program had also fed 834,000 pupils in 2,700 primary schools across the state.