From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
Abia State Governor, Dr Alex Otti, has commended President Bola Tinubu over the Conditional Cash Transfer programme, which he said has benefitted some less privileged people in the state.
Otti made the commendation at the formal opening of a one-day training held for local government cash transfer facilitators on the Renewed Hope Conditional Cash Transfer Orientation and Beneficiary Enrolment Process in Abia.
Represented by the Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Mrs Ngozi Felix, Governor Otti expressed delight that the Federal Government provided Abia people the opportunity to benefit from the conditional cash transfer programme.
Otti said the Abia Government was poised to collaborate with the Federal Government to effectively implement the cash transfer initiative for the poor and vulnerable persons in the state.
He promised that the state would support the Federal Government’s laudable initiative to achieve the collective goal of poverty reduction in the state and country in general. He advised the trainees to participate actively in the training.
The representative of the National Enrolment Unit, Abuja, Musa Mohammed, said he was in Abia to ensure that the enrolment commenced seamlessly and geared toward realising the goals of the Renewed Hope Agenda.
Mohammed said that the implementation would be foolproof and that the process had been digitised for payments to be made through the beneficiaries’ bank accounts.
The Abia Programme Manager, Okeziem Nwoko, said that 90,000 of the 1.5m prospective beneficiaries captured in the state Social Register would be enrolled in the 17 local government areas.
Nwoko said that 22,850 Abia poor and vulnerable persons had already benefited from the cash transfer programme in the past three to four years.
He said that Ohafia and Umuahia North had the highest number of beneficiaries, ranging from 13,000 to 14,000.
Two facilitators, Cherechi Paul and Samuel Ubaka from Isiala Ngwa South and Ohafia LGAs, respectively, said the training exposed them to the very essence of their assignment.