Subsidy: 230,000 households to get FG’s N25,000 monthly in Kogi

About 230,411 households are expected to receive the Federal Government’s N25,000 monthly as palliatives for fuel subsidy removal in Kogi.

The National Enrolment Manager, National Cash Transfer Office, NCTO, Hajiya Sadiya Abdullahi, said this when she spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria during the enrollment for targeted beneficiaries on Thursday in Lokoja.

She said the programme, tagged: “Renewed Hope Initiative Intervention”, was leveraging the National Social Safety Net project structure.

This, she said, would enable Tinubu fulfil his promise of cushioning the economic shock of fuel subsidy removal.

”Over 15 million households across the country will benefit from the N25,000 monthly disbursement for three months in the first phase,” she said.

Abdullahi said the beneficiaries were sourced from the verified National Social Safety Net Coordinating Office, NASSCO.

“In Nigeria, a total number of 15 million will be supported through one primary recipient per household.

“In Kogi, we have a total of 230,411 beneficiaries for the first phase of the intervention, which is one-third of the total number of beneficiaries to be captured.

“This activity is a transparency and accountability process; you can see we have displayed the list of beneficiaries both banked and unbanked so as to enrol them for payment.

“The system is fully digital, and the unbanked beneficiaries are supported to have bank accounts for financial inclusion,” she said.

Also speaking, Mrs Bridget James, the Head of Operation, Kogi Cash Transfer Unit, said the exercise was meant to display the list of beneficiaries and proceed with their data capturing.

“Most of the beneficiaries are unbanked, that is why we are capturing them to get their details so long their names are on the National Social Register (NSR).

“The capturing of their details would in turn qualify them to partake of the N25,000 monthly for three months to cushion the adverse effects of fuel subsidy removal,” she said.

Okpanachi said the exercise would capture over 171,000 new beneficiaries in addition to about 74,000 existing households who had already benefited from the monthly N5,000 Cash Transfer of N5,000 since 2016 in the state.

“So in all, over 230,000 households will benefit in the first phase of the Renewed Hope intervention program by the federal government in Kogi,” she said.

She said over 14,000 households would benefit in Lokoja Local Government Area (LGA) of the state, adding that the enrollment was going on simultaneously across the 21 LGAs of the state.

She advised the beneficiaries to be patient and calm as there were enough staff on the ground to capture them without wasting time.