Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Sadiyat Farouq, has said her ministry’s “Conditional Cash Transfer” to Nigeria’s poorest of the poor, was a loan from the World Bank.
She revealed this at a meeting with the leadership of the National Assembly on Tuesday on how her ministry has handled the distribution of palliatives to cushion the impact of Coronavirus lockdown in Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.
The Minister told the federal lawmakers that the Conditional Cash Transfer also came with quite a number of conditions which she did not disclose.
She further said that Nigeria was expected to make contributions in form of counterpart funding.
Farouk, however, expressed regrets that her ministry has to depend on loans from the World Bank to sustain the social welfare scheme in the absence of contributions from the Nigerian government.
Responding to questions from the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila on how the Ministry arrived at the list of beneficiaries, the Minister said the ministry has overtime developed a “Social Register” showing the names of all the beneficiaries and that she had obtained approval from the World Bank to expand the list to accommodate more vulnerable families.
The Minister has come under heavy public criticism when she was seen last week sharing money at a rowdy cash point to some beneficiaries in Kwali LGA of the Federal Capital Territory on a day when the entire city was supposed to be on lockdown from COVID-19.
Not particularly pleased with that arrangement, the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan called for an immediate review of the current strategy.
This was as the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila pushed vigorously for all social welfare schemes in the country with a view to eliminating current infractions in the system.
The meeting has continued behind closed doors.
