Many Nigerians are not taking it easy with the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Sadiya Farouk, over her claim that the Federal Government has started distributing money to the poorest Nigerians.
They are asking questions concerning how and when the government identified the poorest and the channel it has been using to share the money.
“With which data? Who is the government classifying as the poorest Nigerians? Is there such data in the country? Who are the poorest Nigerians that they have started transferring money to? These are questions that beg for answers, please the money should not be wasted o, it should be given to those who actually need it. Please make this to be open and transparent. People in the the states that are on lock down are the people that need this money at this period, please apply wisdom this time, and it is higbtime we had a database to work with in this country please,” one of them asks on Linda Ikeji Blog.
At a media briefing in Abuja on Monday, Farouk had said that
her ministry had commenced advance payment of conditional cash transfer to the poorest households in the country.
But she did not disclose the amount of cash that is being transferred to the poor.
She said, “In Mr. President’s speech, paragraph 54, he directed that the conditional cash transfer should be given in advance of two months. This we have also done. We have directed immediate cash transfer to the poorest and most vulnerable households in the country.
“Because of this COVID-19, the vulnerable groups have to expanded, because we are aware that there are people who live on daily wage, so we are also going to look at those groups of people to see how we can get this food relief intervention to them in this period.”
Another commentator said: Where is the cash transfer? Federal “Government should not mix up things. The poorest or vulnerable people don’t even operate a bank account. And those ones operating it, doesn’t even keep money in that account because of paper work bureaucracy to get their money. Now, how can federal govt. locate them for the transfer. Federal govt should transfer the money to whoever working in Lagos that’s affected by the shut down through their BVN. We’re all affected by the shut down and in fact most of us have lost one thing or the other therefore, it is onus on the federal govt to transfer the money to whoever will take it while those that don’t have a bank account should visit specified location for food sharing as I’ve seen many in some local govt.”
