COVID-19: Kwara starts distribution of palliatives weekend

Kwara State government will this weekend start distribution of palliatives to certain categories of people considered to be very poor and worst hit by the stay at home directive aimed to prevent the spread of coronavirus pandemic in the state.

Speaking with journalists in Ilorin on Wednesday, chairman of the steering committee on palliatives, an offshoot of the state technical committee on COVID-19, Dr Haliru Yahaya, who is also the Emir of Shonga, said that aged, physically challenged, women, especially, widows and widowers who are sole breadwinners of their families, artisans who are dependent on daily earnings and any other category that the committee deems fit would benefit the palliatives.

The chairman of the nine-man committee, who said that the palliatives would include food items and condiments such as rice, vegetable oil, beans, semovita, maggi, added that the distribution would be carried out across 193 wards in the 16 local government areas of the state.

Accordingly, each of the 16 local government areas and 193 wards in the state are hereby required to set up an implementation committee respectively.

The committee will be made up of the most senior traditional authority in the local government and ward, the most senior religious authority in the local government and ward and two representatives of the community-based organisations in the local government and in the ward.

The committees at the local government areas are only to supervise and provide independent monitoring of what happens at the ward levels.

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The Ward Implementation Committees should, with immediate effect, draw up a list of beneficiaries that match the criteria stated above. Such list should reach the secretariat of the Committee on Palliatives on or before 12 noon on Friday 3rd April 2020. We believe that the necessary checks will be built into the exercise with the constitution of these committees even as the Palliatives committee will have overall coordination of the exercise.

This ward-level distribution of the palliatives will be carried out in phases and the number of packages going to each ward shall be announced. The steering committee on palliatives shall duly announce dates for the distribution of items for each ward. We are projecting to start distribution from this weekend. It is expected that the DPM’s in all the local governments shall liaise with the Palliatives Committee on the movement of the items to their respective local governments.

Tribune Online reports that this move is the government’s way of showing good faith and affection to the people who have been asked to stay at home on safety grounds. The committee, therefore, urges the well-heeled in the society to help the needy at this time and commends all those who have donated to the government or are supporting the poor in their own way.