REVEALED! One million Nigerians benefits from N10 billion every 2 months - FG | READ DETAILS

The programme was introduced to help address unemployment, improve the living conditions of extremely poor and vulnerable Nigerians, empower the people economically, encourage school enrolment, equip less educated people to be self-employed, build capacity and so on.

This disclosure was made by the National Coordinator, National Social Safety Nets Coordinating Office (NASSCO), Mr Apera Iorwa, at the NASSP Third-Party Project scorecard dissemination meeting on Monday, in Abuja.

What the National Coordinator of NASSCO is saying

Iorwa said, "From the Federal Government cash transfer programme, each beneficiary got N5,000 monthly but because of logistics, we pay N10,000 every two months and we have paid about one million beneficiaries across the country.''

He said that they first started with 19 states from 2016 to 2017 and with the World Bank loan, subsequently moved to 24 states by 2018, adding that gradually the program had covered the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

He noted that the distribution depends on how the state governments are able to establish their social register in each of their states.

The NASSCO National Coordinator said, "We do this through the World Bank facility of 500 million dollars for five years. The Abacha repatriated loot of 325 million dollars was given to National Cash Transfer Office (NCTO). We have a total projection of 822 million dollars for over five years.''

Iorwa disclosed that there are 35.2 million individuals from 8. 2 million households in the social register in 36 states and FCT, with about 49% of them being female and 51%, male.

He said that the cash transfer had also helped to send more children to school, as their parents were able to buy books and school uniforms.

The Executive Director, Centre for Health Education, Economic Rehabilitation and Social Security (CHEERS), an NGO, Mrs Ajia Agagbo, said that the meeting was to give the scorecard of the project for the past year.

Agagbo said that the centre's objective was to provide independent monitoring information on the different processes being implemented within the safety net programme adding that the Third Party Monitoring (TPM) was one of the basic foundational elements in promoting social investment and accountability within the context of any government or donor-funded programmes.
What you should know
The NASSCO was established in 2016 by the Government of Nigeria in partnership with the World Bank to strengthen social safety nets and social protection system in Nigeria as a core strategy to help end extreme poverty and to promote shared prosperity.

The core mandate of the agency is to lay a strong foundation of rigorous and reliable evidence of poor and vulnerable households in Nigeria, by building a National Social Register (NSR), as well as coordinate, refine and integrate the social safety-net programs into social protection systems while ensuring policy coherence.

The flagship programs that are targeted to help the poor and vulnerable include The National Cash Transfer Office (NCTO), Youth Empowerment and Social Support Operations (YESSO), and the Community and Social Development Project (CSDP).