The Federal Government has disbursed over N6 billion to poor households in six out of the 14 local government areas of Zamfara under its Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) scheme in 2020.
This was disclosed by the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq during the flag off of Grant for Rural Women Project, on Tuesday in Gusau.
She said the CCT which commenced in 2016, was aimed at responding to deficiencies in capacity and lack of investment in human capital of poor and vulnerable households.
“The programme is designed to deliver timely and accessible cash transfers to beneficiary households.
“And sets to support development objectives and priorities, to achieve improvement in health and nutrition, school enrolment and retention, environmental sanitation and empowerment among others,” she explained.
Umar-Faruk said 130,000 beneficiaries from Anka, Bungudu, Birnin Magaji, Kaura Namoda, Tsafe, and Talata Mafara local government areas received between N30,000 to N80,000, based on the dates each beneficiary was enrolled into the programme.
On the Grant for Rural Women programme, the minister said it was introduced to sustain the social inclusion agenda of the Buhari Administration, including the realization of the national aspiration of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years.
“It is designed to provide a one-off grant to some of the poorest and most vulnerable women in rural Nigeria.
“A grant of N20,000 will be disbursed to over 150,000 poor rural women across the 36 states of the federation,” she said.
The minister commended the women empowerment initiative of Zamfara Governor, Bello Matawalle, which she noted was worthy of emulation by others.
Earlier, the governor who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Alhaji Bala Maru, said the state government had commenced the payment of N20,000 monthly to 1,800 women, to encourage them start or improve their businesses and be economically self reliant.
He appealed for more support from the federal government to help in ending banditry and other criminalities in the state.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the beneficiaries commended the federal government for the gesture and promised to make judicious use of the grant.