- NEC says the people the Buhari’s government claimed are beneficiaries of its cash transfer cannot be found
- It asserts that the previous government conditional cash transfer was riddled with corruption
The National Economic Council, NEC, on Thursday unanimously jettisoned the national social register used by the former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to implement its conditional cash transfer.
The resolution was made at NEC meeting presided over by Vice President Kashim Shettima at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa.
The council said that the register was riddled with integrity issues as the criteria for its compilation was opaque
Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State said contrary to what the previous administration claimed, it was impossible to digitally transfer money to the poorest of the poor the majority of whom are unbankable.
He said that it was agreed that states should generate registers that are comprehensive and ensures that it will be for the vulnerable people only.
Professor Soludo, flanked by his Bauchi and Ogun State counterpart, Bala Mohammed and Dapo Abiodun, respectively, stated that beneficiaries of the supposedly transfered cash could not be identified in the villages.
He said NEC agredd that the states should design their own registers using formal and informal means to develop it, assuring that all beneficiaries at the subnational level could easily been accessed that way.
“We need to face the problem of the fact that we don’t have a credible register,” he said.
Soludo affirmed that NEC deliberated on ways to cushion the impact of the recent petroleum subsidy removal.
By the same token, the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led Federal Government has announced that it will distribute 252 thousand metric tons of grains to states at a subsidised rate to cushion the effect of hardship occasioned by the petrol subsidy removal.