Over 43,000 vulnerable persons to benefit from CCT scheme in Anambra

Group flays ‘barbaric’ enforcement of lockdown in S’East

No fewer than 43,000 poor and vulnerable persons are to benefit from the Federal Government’s palliatives under the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) scheme aimed at cushioning the effect of coronavirus pandemic in Anambra State.

Anambra State Coordinator, State Operations Coordinating Unit (SOCU), Bede Okoli, who said the data bank capturing in the state was credible, disclosed that the figure generated as at March 2020 came to 43,000.

Okoli, however, stressed that the figure would likely increase after the next data validation, noting that the data generation to pay the beneficiaries under Federal Government’s Social Investment Programme (SIP) was at the instance of SOCU.

He said each state office has a social register of poor and vulnerable persons based on geographic targeting mechanism, community-based targeting process and proxy means test.

He explained that poverty was relative and using proxy means test intervention scale for the conditional cash transfer for every state, hence the lesser number for the state in particular and the South-East zone in general.

Meanwhile, the Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) has condemned what it described as ‘barbaric’ approach adopted by some security agencies in enforcing the Federal Government’s lockdown order in the South-East geopolitical zone.

In a statement yesterday, the group also “condemned in strong terms the draconian measures adopted by security agencies in the enforcement of the rules of engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Chairman of the ADF Media Bureau, Abia Onyike, who made the group’s position known said, “It is unfortunate and unprecedented that over 20 innocent citizens have been killed or maimed in the region.”

While lamenting that the officially recorded COVID-19 casualty in Igboland has reached four persons within the zone, it pointed out that the number of deaths by security agents through extra-judicial killings was alarming.

The group noted that although extra-judicial killings have all along been the lot of the Igbo citizens, especially in the hands of security personnel and that the recent ones are executed using the COVID-19 lockdown as an excuse.