29,214 Anambra households to benefit from FG’s cash transfer

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The Anambra State Government has announced that the Federal Government’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Cash Transfer Programme would help 29,214 poor and other disadvantaged households in the state.

The Commissioner for Economic Planning, Budget and Development Partners, Mark Okoye, revealed this yesterday in Awka during a stakeholders’ sensitisation on the Rapid Response Register (RRR). He added that the measure was to cushion the impact of the pandemic across the state.

Anambra State Operations Coordinating Unit (SOCU) collaborated with the National Social Safety Net Coordinating Office (NASSCO) under the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development to organize the event.

Anambra West, Ayamelum, Awka North, Dunukofia, Ekwusigo, Onitsha South, Ogbaru, Oyi, and Orumba North are among the nine local councils chosen to benefit from the RRR scheme, according to Okoye, who was represented by the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Dr. Dan Ezeanwu.

He said: “The RRR will be used to implement a cash transfer programme to a total of 29,214 poor, vulnerable households from urban and semi-urban wards of Anambra for an initial period of six months. The selection is based on the scientific method of Satellite Remote Sensing Technology (SRST), Machine Learning (ML), Algorithm and Big Data Analysis, which provided the basis for ranking the wards according to poverty index and availability of resources.

“This is followed by digital identification using the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) link of telecommunications facility by dialling a unique code to access the application portal. The identification exercise will be followed by enumeration and validation exercises.”

Okoye added that enumerators would visit applicants at their homes to collect additional information such as their National Identification Number (NIN) and bank account information, and that those who registered would be charged through a digitalized payment system in their bank accounts.

The commissioner stated that the state government had been collaborating with the federal government on various social intervention programs, which were all aligned with the federal government’s goal of raising 100 million Nigerians out of poverty by 2025.

While reciting the codes, he stated that not everybody in a local council would receive the SMS and that the government had taken sufficient precautions to prevent scams.

Bede Okoli, the State Coordinator of SOCU, was present at the briefing, as was Chris Azor, a representative of the Civil Society Network, and Ada Nwokedi, the Information, Education, and Communications Officer of SOCU.

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