The National Coordinator of the National Social Safety-Net (NASSCO), Lorwa Apera, has said the Federal Government has spent over $300 million of the $500 million accessed for vulnerable Nigerians.
He said the amount left would be used for the new data in September for about an additional 1 million Nigerians bringing the register to 2 million vulnerable across the country.
He noted that the programme was designed to last five years outliving the administration that birth it.
He said: “After the $500 for five years, the first phase of the programme will end in June 2022, so far we have spent over $300, the $200m left will be pushed to pay up to 2 million people that we hope to have in September.
He also called on well-meaning individuals and institutions that are focused on poverty eradication, to explore the national social safety-net data which he maintained could be mined to reach the targeted poor and vulnerable Nigerians.
Apera, who addressed journalists at an interactive session in Abuja, said the register has served both global and Nigerian institutions of public and private concerns in reaching targets that could be sourced from the data already generated.
Apera said the data generated covered specific locations in various communities of Nigeria and can serve the governments, politicians and individuals who want to empower people in any specific community.
He told reporters that the challenge of generating data rests with the state governors who are expected to raise their team and then the Federal Government would train the staffers who in turn would generate the data from the local government areas in the area.
“The data already generated can be mined to specific demand citing the example of gender, orphan, and internally displaced persons which he said are around the figure of 600,000 in Borno State alone.
“As at the time the pandemic struck, we did not have the social register in Ebonyi State, we did not have the social register in Ogun State.
“The reason simply was that it was a huge struggle to get the state governors and the state government up and running about it.
“When we released those figures of March that showed that the Northern state has more figure than Southern states the governors sum up to their responsibilities, for instance, the Ebonyi State governor called me and I told him the condition.”
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