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Vulnerable residents to benefit from NG-Imo Cares Programme

By Debo Oladimeji
17 July 2021   |   3:16 am
The poor and the vulnerable will benefit from the Imo State government’s NG-Imo Cares Programme.

The poor and the vulnerable will benefit from the Imo State government’s NG-Imo Cares Programme.

The programme is a socio-economic and development programme put together by the World Bank and the Federal Government to ameliorate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on small enterprises and medium-scale businesses.

It is designed to benefit poor and vulnerable individuals across the state.

Speaking during an interactive session with journalists, the Commissioner for Budget, Economic Planning and Statistics, Dr. C. C Osuala, and the Special Adviser to the Governor on Public Enlightenment, Prince Eze Ugochukwu, disclosed that the NG-Imo Cares Programme is all-inclusive, saying nobody will be excluded as long as he/she falls within the poor, middle class and of course the unemployed and the vulnerable.

“The sensitisation programme is almost taking effect because we have the conditional cash transfer unit that is reaching the poor and vulnerable household.”

Then we will have the State Operating Coordinating Units (SOCU), which is the data collection unit. The unit will collect data about the unemployed, the youth and the vulnerable in the rural areas and various communities and villages,” Osuala said.

According to him, the government has begun to sensitise residents about the programme.

“We believe that some of our quasi-farmers are equally affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and to ameliorate the prices of food in the market, we have to encourage the people by stimulating or maybe giving them seedlings or fertilizers to encourage more agricultural productivity. So, it is an all-inclusive package as nobody is excluded.

“One of the indices of identifying the poor and vulnerable is to reach out to the community leaders, the traditional rulers and the president generals.

“By the time you do that, consensus opinion will be built among stakeholders. We use the World Bank standard for enumeration. We use that data to enumerate the poor and vulnerable in their various locations. If you add this to the opinion poll of the people in the communities, at a point you get a consensus. It is like a brainstorming template. You get a consensus of who is actually poor and vulnerable in those communities,” Osuala added.

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