President Bola Ahmed Tinubu
Starting from this month, Federal Government is extending its social safety net via the expansion of its cash transfer programme to an additional 15 million vulnerable households in the country in order to bring succour to the poor.
In its June 2023 edition of the Nigerian Development Update, the World Bank disclosed that only about 19.4 percent of Nigerians benefitted from the Cash transfer scheme in the past year.
With an estimated population (World Bank estimates) of 207 million, this meant that only about 40.21 million Nigerians benefitted from the Cash transfer scheme.
With the proposed additional 15 million households to the scheme, from this month as contained in President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Independence Day broadcast, the figure of beneficiaries is expected to rise to over 51 million mark, reaching about 25 percent of the estimated over 200 million Nigerians.
Said Ahmed Hadi, an investment banker: “This will be a good start to tackling poverty if the National Social Register comprising State Social Registers of Poor and Vulnerable Households is cleaned up and made to be a genuine list of this category of Nigerians. Given that the World Bank, in that report, indicated that about 40 percent of Nigerians lived on less than the national poverty line at the end of 2022, if the cash transfer programme of the present government can capture about 25 percent of the vulnerable Nigerians on taking off, it will be a good way to start.”
The Tinubu Government seems to appreciate the fact that bailing the economy out of the challenges thrown up by the subsidy removal will require more than cash transfers to the vulnerable.
Real economic growth and poverty alleviation can only be achieved through production and employment generation.
It is in this respect that the President, in his address to the nation, committed his government to providing investment funds for enterprises in order to boost employment and urban incomes.
In the same vein, the government is increasing investment in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.
Many Nigerians last evening are of the opinion that given far reaching measures to tackle the fuel subsidy challenges as enunciated in the President’s Independence Day broadcast, Labour Union leaders may have good reasons to reconsider their planned indefinitely strike action which is billed to commence on Tuesday.
Indeed, the President has extended the olive branch to the union leaders, giving indications that they earned his respect and he is ready to work with them.
He said: “I also thank members of our dynamic civil society organisations and labour unions for their dedication to Nigerian democracy. We may not always agree but I value your advice and recommendations. You are my brothers and sisters and you have my due respect.”
