Joseph Bakare
The Federal Government is planning to pay a minimum of N25,000 to 15 million pensioners as monthly allowance from next month under the federal government conventional cash transfer scheme.
The beneficiaries are most likely to be members of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners captured in the expanded National Social Register of the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Scheme.
Dr Betta Edu, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, said this when she paid a visit to the office of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) in Abuja. She said the inclusion of pensioners in the scheme showed President Tinubu’s commitment to deliver on the mandate of reducing poverty in Nigeria.“The President mentioned very clearly that vulnerable pensioners should be immediately captured on the National social Register and benefit from the Conditional Cash Transfer, as part of the national social safety net expansion and this was made clear in his speech on Independence Day where he committed N25,000 for 15million household for three months.” Edu appealed to the NLC to help in collating the required data on beneficiaries so that they could start benefiting from the scheme.
Comrade Ajaero, the NLC President, said the union was delighted by the various poverty alleviation schemes rolled out by the ministry. He advised the government to get the root causes of poverty to address the problem.
Meanwhile the Minister said President Bola Tinubu has directed that 10 per cent of money to be shared under the social safety net should be allocated to old persons. Dr Edu said this while speaking during a stakeholders’ meeting to commemorate the 2023 National Day of Older Persons in Nigeria. Rasheed Zubair, the Minister’s Spokesman, said this in a statement in Abuja.
He said “Mr President has directed that my Ministry should set aside 10 per cent of social safety net intervention programmes for older persons in the country.
“The rights of senior citizens in the areas of job security, health, livelihood, agriculture and other development planning must be considered.
Presently, older persons are said to be about 14.8 million out of the entire population, that is why the President directed that in all our social welfare interfaces older persons must be involved,” she said.
The President also directed that those who are under the poverty line must be assisted and captured in the social intervention programmes. We would inaugurate two of such social intervention programmes with emphasis on senior citizens because we will be providing for senior citizens who are affected by humanitarian crises,” she said.