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…free transport, revival of locomotive train in medium, long-term plans
From Noah Ebije, Kaduna
Kaduna State Governor, Senator Uba Sani has disclosed that, one million and fifty thousand poor and vulnerable citizens, representing 210,000 households are to benefit from the immediate palliative plans in the State.
The Governor disclosed this at a press briefing rolling out the State Government’s palliative plans on Tuesday, saying that, the state has received the first tranche of N2billion out the N5billion promised by the Federal Government.
He however said that, in the medium term and long term, the state plans to roll out free transportation and revival of the abandoned locomotive train system in the state, to run from Zaria to Kaduna to Kafanchan.
According to the Governor who was flanked at the press briefing by his Deputy, Dr Hadiza Balarabe, other senior government officials and labour leaders said, “We are target about one million and fifty thousand poor and vulnerable citizens, representing 210,000 households.
“The Federal Government promised to give state N5billion, which will serve as both grant and loan, but as of today, N2billion has been given to Kaduna State and that is what we are using right now to ensure that we come up with something for the poor, underserved and vulnerable in our state who have been suffering the removal of the fuel subsidy.
“The Committee headed by the Deputy Governor, which has all the labour unions, market women, people with disabilities represented, sat down and worked out the modalities on how we will spend the N2billion, and the outcome of their deliberation is as follows:
“We have agreed and decided collectively that, with the support of all the unions to buy 43,000 bags 50kg rice, winch translates to One Billion, Nine hundred and Thirty-five million Naira. The N65 million balance will be used to support the logistics of People With Disabilities, the Widows and the IDPs that live in the Internally Displaced Camps in Kaduna.
“We are going to be transparent, because I also part of the labour movement. All we need is transparency and accountability, that is the way we can win the support and confidence of our people. The people seated here representing different trade unions are the people that are close to the downtrodden, that is the reason we allow them to drive the process.
“In the interim, we are focusing on persons with disabilities, widows, elderly, orphans IDPs that are living in camps in Kaduna State, as well as other people we believe from the reports from the trade unions deserve to also be included in the first phase of our palliative intervention
“In the second phase, we will look at the issue of transplantation, that is where we are also going to consider the urban poor. We will ensure we come up with free transportation working closely with road transport organizations and our own Kaduna line.
“Also in the medium term, we will also look at the area of providing fertilizers for our small holder farmers. We also going to consider micro and small businesses because they are very important to our economy. We will support them with grants to get them out of poverty.
“In the long term, we will look at our locomotive train that was abandoned and revival it. The train will move from Zaria to Kaduna to Kafanchan. We have already started discussions with the ministry of transport on that. We will also consider buying some buses to run free transport for the first six months and run at subsidized rate later,” Governor Sani said.
The NLC Chairman, Kaduna Chapter, Comrade Ayuba Sulaiman, while speaking at the briefing commended the Governor for the inclusive approach by engaging with key stakeholders in the distribution of palliatives to the people of Kaduna State.
Comrade Sulaiman also lauded the committee for prioritizing the most vulnerable and underserved groups as beneficiaries of the palliative interventions.
