Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Uba Sani, has said as part of measures to cushion the effects of the subsidy removal, one million and fifty thousand poor and vulnerable citizens, representing 210,000 households, will benefit from palliative plans- in the state.
Speaking at a press briefing in Kaduna, he confirmed the receipt of the first tranche of N2 billion out of the N5 billion promised by the Federal Government.
According to him, part of the strategy adopted by his government is to roll out medium and long terms.
For instance, he noted that the state plans to roll out free transportation and revive the abandoned locomotive train system in the state to run from Zaria to Kaduna to Kafanchan.
Flanked by the state Deputy Governor, Dr Hadiza Balarabe, and other top government officials, including labour leaders, he maintained, “We are targeting about one million and fifty thousand poor and vulnerable citizens, representing 210,000 households.
“The Federal Government promised to give state N5billion, which will serve as both grant and loan, but as of today, N2billion has been given to Kaduna State, and that is what we are using right now to ensure that we come up with something for the poor, underserved and vulnerable in our state who have been suffering the removal of the fuel subsidy.
“The Committee headed by the Deputy Governor, which has all the labour unions, market women, and people with disabilities represented, sat down and worked out the modalities on how we will spend the N2billion, and the outcome of their deliberation is as follows:
“We have agreed and decided collectively that, with the support of all the unions to buy 43,000 bags 50kg rice, winch translates to One Billion, Nine hundred and Thirty-five million Naira.
“The N65 million balance will be used to support the logistics of People With Disabilities, Widows, and the IDPs that live in the Internally Displaced Camps in Kaduna.
“We are going to be transparent because I am also part of the labour movement. All we need is transparency and accountability; that is how we can win our people’s support and confidence.
“The people seated here representing different trade unions are the people that are close to the downtrodden. That is the reason we allow them to drive the process.
“In the interim, we are focusing on persons with disabilities, widows, elderly, orphans, IDPs that are living in camps in Kaduna State, as well as other people we believe from the reports from the trade unions also deserve to be included in the first phase of our palliative intervention
“In the second phase, we will look at the issue of transplantation. That is where we are also going to consider the urban poor. We will ensure we develop free transportation, working closely with road transport organizations and our Kaduna line.
“Also, in the medium term, we will also look at the area of providing fertilizers for our smallholder farmers. We also going to consider micro and small businesses because they are very important to our economy. We will support them with grants to get them out of poverty.
“In the long term, we will look at our abandoned locomotive train and revive it. The train will move from Zaria to Kaduna to Kafanchan. We have already started discussions with the Ministry of Transport on that. We will also consider buying some buses for free transport for the first six months and run at a subsidized rate later,” Governor Sani said.
Also speaking, the NLC Chairman, Kaduna, Comrade Ayuba Sulaiman, commended the Governor for the inclusive approach by engaging with key stakeholders in the distribution of palliatives to the people of Kaduna State.
He also lauded the committee for prioritizing the most vulnerable and underserved groups as beneficiaries of the palliative interventions.
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