Only registered transporters to benefit from N10b COVID-19 bailout, minister insists

UN, ECOWAS donate palliatives to Abuja, Kano Lagos residents

Minister of State for Transportation, Gbemisola Saraki, has maintained that only registered unions would benefit from the N10 billion Federal Government Intervention Fund for road transport workers and operators.

Receiving members of the National Commercial Tricycle and Motorcycle Owners and Riders Association (NACTOMORAS) led by its president, Alhaji Muhammed Sani Hassan, yesterday in Abuja, the minister charged the executive council to ensure that its members were duly captured.

She harped on synergy among stakeholders in the sector, assuring the visitors of government’s commitment to sanity through a regulatory framework her ministry was formulating.

Saraki said the pandemic had necessitated contact tracing of passengers, as normalcy gradually returns to the country, adding that government was aware of the vital role of tricycle and motorcycle operators in the industry.

Earlier, Hassan had appealed for their inclusion in the largesse.

IN a related development, the United Nations World Food Programme has launched a $3 million cash transfer and a food assistance of 2000metric tonnes of grain valued at $1 million to worst hit urban areas of Abuja, Kano and Lagos states to cushion the impact of the disease.

The distribution, done in partnership with the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, addressed 500,000 people across the three urban cities

WFP Country Representative, Paul Howe, during the Kano leg of the event yesterday, noted that “this is the first time that WFP is expanding its programme in Nigeria to reach people in towns and cities – where millions of people are threatened with hunger and malnutrition – due to the socio-economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

To minimise exposure to the virus, she said the global agency WFP had arranged for home deliveries of the items. Also yesterday, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Female Forum donated foodstuffs and other palliatives worth N1.5 million to vulnerable households at Paduma, a settlement in Federal Capital Territory (FCT), to mitigate the effects of the virus.

President of the association, Raheemat Momodu, who presented the goods to community leaders, stated that the coronavirus curve was reducing in terms of fresh infections, but added that the impact of the outbreak was beginning to bite. Receiving the gifts, a woman leader, Mrs. Prina Joe, thanked ECOWAS for remembering the needy.