Edo State government said a total of 102,650 persons in 1,969 communities in the 18 local government areas of the state are to benefit from the second phase of the “Renewed Hope Cash Transfer” of the federal government.
The general manager of the Social Investment Programme (SIP) in the state, Yuwa Aladeselu, disclosed this at a one-day refresher training for local government cash transfer facilitators in Benin City.
Aladeselu said the programme is under the National Social Safety Nets Project Scale Up (NASSP-SU).
The SIP boss, who said Governor Godwin Obaseki is interested in any intervention that will help or provide succour for the poor and vulnerable, noted that the state has a social register of over 1.6 million persons.
She added that about 314,000 households were captured in the register which also included persons living with disability, among others.
Earlier, head of Edo State Cash Transfer Unit, Flora Bossey, said over 12,108 beneficiaries were enrolled and paid during the first phase of the implementation of the programme in 2022.
Bossey said a total of 40,647 beneficiaries had been paid N25,000 across the 18 councils in the state including those who have bank accounts that were drawn from both the National Social Register (NSR) and Rapid Response Register (RRR).
She said the cash transfer was in line with the federal government’s resolve to capture 15 million poor and vulnerable Nigerians under the Expanded National Social Safety Nets Programme Scale-Up.
She said the Expanded National Social Safety Nets Programme Scale-Up was designed to support new beneficiaries for Economic Shock Response Cash Transfer in Urban areas.
On his part, enrolment officer/beneficiaries management officer of the National Cash Transfer Office, Mohammed Adams, said the training was to ensure that the facilitators find the biodata of a total of 101,404 persons who do not have valid bank accounts and enrol them to receive the renewed hope cash transfer.
“All beneficiaries will receive their funds directly through interoperable transactional accounts/wallets thus leading to significant financial inclusion of the beneficiaries,” he said.
