FG mulls single registry to exit Nigerians from poverty, urges trasparent selection process

Coordinator of the National Social Safety Net, Peter Papka, says the Federal Government is to build a single credible registry for the poor and vulnerable.

During training on community-based targeting for identification of the poor and the vulnerable in Enugu yesterday, Papka said the overarching motive was to reduce poverty nationwide.

The programme is part of the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) of the government where beneficiaries are selected from the poorest local councils of participating states and trained on preferred trade with a monthly stipend of N5000.

Papka said government viewed as unacceptable the poverty level in the country and had identified some of the factors that made previous schemes failed.

Against this background, he stressed that the government needed to put in place a credible, transparent and single registry to avoid a repeat of the ugly past.

He noted that the training was to empower the officers who would directly anchor the selection process in the state.

His words: “You are going to be part of the people to eradicate poverty in the state and we expect the outcome to be robust and internationally acceptable.

“The Federal Government wants this social safety net to work and you have to follow a transparent system to choose the beneficiaries.”

Papka warned against compromising the entire exercise.

He went on: “A lot of people will be wondering why CCT is not as fast as the home-grown school feeding programme or N-POWER.

“We now have tracking, monitoring and evaluation system to know those people who are supposed to be recruited. That is why the whole process is slow.

“This is an instituted system that we want to put in place which is expected to outlive all of us. It has to be objective and with no political underpinning.”

The host governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, commended the Federal Government for showing political will to tackle the scourge headlong.

Represented by his deputy, Mrs. Cecilia Ezeilo, the governor said two councils each had been rigorously picked from the three senatorial districts of the state to participate in the pilot project.

He named the benefitting council areas as Aninri, Awgu, Igboetiti, Igboeze South, Isi-Uzo and Nkanu East.