INTERNALLY Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Gombe state have received cash donations to the tune of N106,800, 000.00 million just as donor agencies and individuals intending to make donations of whatever kind to the IDPs in the North-East region have been advised to as a matter of probity use the database of an NGO known as Youth Employment and Social Support Operation (YESSO) in identifying and assisting genuine IDPs.
The advice was given in Gombe by the Acting National Coordinator of YESSO, Hajara Sami who said that this has become necessary to avoid taking resources into wrong hands assuring that the money and or items donated will be distributed using the e-wallet cashless system.
Hajara Sami stated this at the flag-off of the distribution of the sum of N106,800, 000.00 million World Bank assistance to 3,534 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Gombe State under the Targeted Grant Transfer (TGT) programme of the Federal Government.
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She said that, “This is one of the components of YESSO, a Federal Government’s conceived programme in collaboration with the World Bank to reduce the hardship of IDP’s in the Northeast,’ adding that, “the programme is called TGT and before the distribution, all the IDPs Households have been documented through a process called Host Based Identification”.
According to her, “the data collection was reliably done by some Civil Society Organizations (CSO’) to ensure that every household was fully documented so that we can have a register for the IDPs. Thereafter, these registers are going to be available to other organizations that would want to make use of them. The Gombe State Government has partnered with YESSO to make sure that the process was well conducted”.
Hajara Sami further said that, based on the programme, every household is entitled to N200,000 which will be paid in tranches but that right now the first tranche of N30,000 is what is being disbursed to the beneficiaries using the e-wallet (ATM/POS) cashless system.
While speaking on the credibility of IDPs registers, Hajara Sami said that all the 15 States that YESSO is operating in have established the register for the poor and vulnerable groups in the States for any intervention from Government, donor agencies or religious organizations.
“Our offices are domiciled in the States Ministries of Budget and Economic Planning and you can go with your criteria to select the type of groups that you want to support. We are not just putting in place this registers just for the benefit of YESSO’s intervention; we are calling on well-meaning Nigerians and organizations to visit State Operation Coordinating Units (SOCU) in the Ministry of Budget and Planning to make use of the register”, she pointed out.
She also said that “So, we want to implore other organizations that are willing to support these IDPs that we have a credible register that they can use to reach out to these IDPs wherever they are. Be they in the camps, like in other states of the Northeast and even in host communities”.
“Again, I want you to understand, the IDP Register is very dynamic, because of the peculiarity of the IDPs. They come in and they go out. So, each time we have been informed or intimated about new flow of IDPs, we usually update the register. We document those new ones. And if there are those that have left, we also update the register”, she stated.
She said the next tranche of payment will be coming after three months when the IDP’s have been monitored to ascertain how they are fairing while subsequent ones will come later.
Chairman of the IDPs in Gombe state, Abba Jatau commended the World Bank, the Federal Government, Gombe State Government and the YESSO for the intervention which he said will go a long way in ameliorating their sufferings.
He then assured that the donations will be used judiciously in order to make life better for the IDPs just as he called on the government to ensure that peace returns to the area to enable them go back to their respective communities.
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