By Daniel Tyokua
The Minister of state for the Federal Capital Territory Dr Ramatu Aliyu has flagged – off the disbursement of funds to a total of 5,054 vulnerable in Abuja.
During the distribution on Tuesday, she said the exercise was parts of the Economic Sustainability Plan of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
Specifically, the minister said the figure is made up of 3,650 beneficiaries of Social Transfer scheme; and 1,404 beneficiaries of Livelihoods grant, just as she stressed that the social transfer would run for 12 months of six cycles.
Aliyu revealed that beneficiaries under this result area would be receiving stipends of N20, 000.00 bimonthly payments, while beneficiaries under the Livelihood Grants programme would receive between N50, 000.00 to N135, 000.00, one-off payment, depending on the business category.
The minister said; “The programmes is anchored under the COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) scheme. It is designed to expand access to livelihood support, food security services, and grants to poor and vulnerable households and firms.
“It also seeks to promote recovery of Medium Scales Enterprises (MSEs) in the country and revive the economy, especially in the rural areas, where over 70 percent of our population dwells”.
Aliyu, further noted that beyond the NG-CARES initiatives, the FCT Administration in the course of the year implemented a set of other support programmes to residents of the Territory including the FADAMA CARES, CSDP CARES and the AEA CARES at different times and locations.
She described the event as promise kept and mission accomplished by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), stressing that at the inception of Buhari’s administration, the party released a blue-print for lifting 100 million people from poverty through comprehensive policies of Conditional Cash Transfer, Home Grown School Feeding and the N-Power schemes, Government Economic and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), Trader Moni, Market Moni and a host of others.
