Hardship: FG to commence direct cash transfers to 15 million households

By Isaac Job

The Federal Government is set to commence direct cash transfer to vulnerable Nigerians to cushion the effects of the present hardship in the country.

The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, made the disclosure on Wednesday in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital.

Speaking during the 2024 ministerial retreat, Edun said the exercise will be extended to 15 million Nigerian households over a period of 12 months.

Edun said, “Since May 29, the country has been set on a course of micro economic stability. The unsustainable, wasteful expenditures that benefitted just a few people at the cost of the majority have been done away with.

“So now the finances of the nation has been restored. The President has taken away from the few to give to the many. He has stopped expenditure on the few in favour of expenditure on the many. We are all familiar with how the trajectory has been.

“It is in those corrective actions left undone, delayed and therefore the transformation to the right course doesn’t come without a cost.

“Mr President’s commitment is that cost should be borne by the most people and the poorest of the poor, the weak would be protected. That is why even at this time of highly elevated food prices, he has stepped in to intervene.

“He has opened the grain stores. He has released 42,000 metric tonnes of grains and made them available with another 60,000 metric tonnes to intervene to put food, to put grains into the markets in an attempt to drive down the cost of things and make food available. That is the key priority in terms of the fiscal size, in terms of the governing size”.

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The minister assured that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is doing all it can to stabilise the exchange rates as part of efforts to stabilise the economy.

He stressed the need to restore the value of the naira, saying it’s a battle the CBN and the federal government must win.

“In the meantime, everything is being done to ease the pain of Nigerians. We have prepared to go to Mr President with an interim recommendation to restart the direct payment to the poorest and most vulnerable. The commitment was to make sure we use technology to make a seamless payment between the registered and direct beneficiaries without any manual processes in between. Immediately, it is done, that direct payment would resume.

“There are about three million beneficiaries now, but given the way the poverty rate has gone, probably another 12 million households can benefit from that payment. Evidence has shown that when you pay someone directly, it reduces poverty. There is a commitment to immediately restart that process.

“We have the commitment to help bring down inflation and the monetary side, ways and means have been identified. We agree that the historical legacy that was inherited has to be dealt with and those are the revenue initiatives that we are focused on to remove that inflator burden on the economy,” he stated.