Compiles list of N5,000 monthly beneficiaries

By Gabriel Omoh & Emma Ujah

The federal government is set to release the N350 billion which it set aside to boost the economy, a Presidency source disclosed in Abuja, yesterday.

It was learned that the money is available and would be released as soon as the budget was released.

The strategy is one of the various first-line actions of the Federal Government to inject life into the economy that has been under stress for several months.

Contractors have already expressed their readiness to return to sites of various uncompleted projects across the country.

Many of the contractors, especially those constructing various roads across the country, returned to site early last month when the decision of the government to push the N350 billion into the economy was announced.

Indeed, some of them started skeletal work but suspended work almost immediately, as they adopted an attitude of “wait and see”, on the modalities of disbursing the said amount.

FG compiles list of N5,000 monthly beneficiaries

It was also learned    that the list of beneficiaries of the Federal Government’s monthly N5,000 conditional cash transfer is already being compiled. One million poor Nigerians will benefit from the programme.

The source disclosed that the compilation was in collaboration with the World Bank which had started compiling a social register.

He said that President Muhammadu Buhari was very passionate about social investments by his administration among the ordinary Nigerians who were mainly responsible for his election and would not do anything to jeopardize their confidence in him.

According to him, eight states of the federation have already been covered and the criteria to determine beneficiaries have been clearly spelt out.

They include: school enrolment by the parents of school-age children; immunization of children against child-killer diseases as well as, the aged and disabled poor.

It was disclosed that the programme would run throughout the period of the administration’s tenure.

It was also learned that contrary to widely held opinions in some quarters, the N5,000 monthly stipend programme had not been cancelled by the Buhari administration.

The source clarified that while some people held that the Federal Government was to pay N5,000 monthly to graduates, the graduates’ scheme would be the recruitment of 500, 000 volunteer teachers who would be paid N30, 000 monthly.

The graduates’ volunteer programme would run for two years, with the expectation that the volunteers would be able to secure other jobs as the economy throws up new opportunities, the source said.

In addition, he said that the administration’s micro-credit scheme for small businesses would act as a game-changer in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, MSMEs, subsector of the economy.

Under that scheme, a revolving loans fund would be made available to Nigerian youths who want to go into small business as well as those already in business, to enable them expand their operations.