By Adedapo Adesanya
The federal government has begun the enrollment of an additional 32,236 Poor and Vulnerable Households (PVHHs) beneficiaries in Kaduna State, in its ongoing Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme.
The Head of Cash Transfer Unit in the state, Mrs Hauwa Abdulrazaq, made this known in Kaduna on Tuesday, noting that a total of 34,946 PVHHs were already benefiting from the programme in nine Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the state, namely Birnin Gwari, Chikun, Ikara, Kachia, Kauru, Kubau, Lere, Kajuru and Sanga.
She added that the 32,236 new beneficiaries would be enrolled in the remaining 14 LGAs, thereby covering the entire state.
She identified the 14 LGAs as Giwa, Igabi, Jaba, Kaduna North, Kaduna South, Kagarko, Kaura, Kudan, Makarfi, Sabon Gari, Soba, Zangon Kataf, Zaria, and Jema’a.
According to her, the exercise when concluded would increase the number of beneficiaries in the state to 67, 182.
“The enrollment exercise began with the training of Cash Transfer Facilitators (CTFs) on community sensitisation and disclosure between December 20 and December 22
“We equally trained the CTFs on orientation and beneficiaries and data capturing and were deployed to the field for data capturing on December 26.
“The beneficiaries are being mined from the State Social Register of poor and vulnerable households, domicile at the State Operations Coordination Unit, Planning and Budget Commission.
“Each of the beneficiaries will be receiving N5, 000 monthly as cash transfer which is being paid bi-monthly,” she said.
The programme began in 2017 in Kaduna State with about 10,000 beneficiaries but expanded to 22, 380 in April and further increased to 34,946 in July.
So far, more than 265,275 poor and vulnerable households had been captured in the state’s Social Register as at first week of December.
The CCT is a household uplifting programme targeting poorest of the poor households in the country with cash transfer, capacity building, mentoring and livelihood support, under the national social investment programme.
Beneficiaries also receive training as well as financial and technical support to start small businesses.
Modupe Gbadeyanka