Bolaji Ogundele, Abuja
THE Federal Government said it would henceforth work with state governments to reach out to beneficiaries of its palliatives arranged to assuage the harsh effects of anti-COVID-19 measures.
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Mrs. Sadiya Umar-Farouk, made this disclosure on Monday at the daily briefing of the task force.
Responding to a question on whether the Federal Government was thinking of changing the strategy of sharing the palliatives, owing to criticism from quarters, the minister said the country had a national response plan on ground, with representatives from the national to local governments on board.
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She said all tiers of government were represented in the committee that had been distributing relief materials to the vulnerable.
“Going forward, we have decided to handover this food relief to the governors for onward redistribution to their citizens, the poor and vulnerable in the society. In fact, I have started that. I was in Lagos and Ogun states last week and I have handed over trucks of food relief to the governors.”
On the disbursement of cash to the poor and vulnerable, the minister said: “I have mentioned it before that this is an approval that has been in existence since 2016 and we are using the existing register. We will give them N5,000 per month, but now that President Muhammadu Buhari has directed that we give two months advance, this is why we are giving this N20,000. Yes, it is a process that is really cumbersome, but with transparency and accountability, the ministry has already begun the digitalisation of this process.”
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