Close

NEC rejects Buhari’s social register adopts new method of cash transfer 

The National Economic Council (NEC) chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima has decided to discard the national social register due to credibility issues during Muhammadu Buhari's administration.

Kashim Shettima

The National Economic Council (NEC) has decided not to use the social register from the previous administration, led by Muhammadu Buhari, for the implementation of its conditional cash transfer program due to credibility issues.

Instead, the council suggested a cash transfer program for states using their social registers and a six-month cash reward system for public servants.  

This resolution emerged from a lengthy meeting at the state house on Thursday between the Vice-President, thirty-six state Governors, a representative of the Governor of the Central bank and other co-opted government officials. 

Top on the agenda of the council’s meeting today was to fashion out a way to provide palliative for the poor to cushion the effect of the fuel subsidy removal.  

The Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Charles Soludo confirmed this to reporters after the meeting.

He said, “We need to face the problem of the fact that we don’t have a credible register,”  

Beyond the problem of the social register, the Governor also noted the council’s decision to provide Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) with single-digit interest loans. 

Prof. Soludo also stated the NEC agreed that outstanding payments for public servants and pensioners should be paid to assuage the hardship currently being experienced.  

About the National Social Register 

The administration of President Buhari through the support of the world bank established the National Social Safety Nets Project (NASSP) in 2016 in fulfilment of his campaign promise of 2015.

The project led to the development of the National Social Register where data from poor and vulnerable households were collated for the purpose of cash transfers.  

Since 2016, over 61 million vulnerable persons have been registered and about 15 million poor and vulnerable households registered across the 36 states and FCT.   

FG’s effort to provide post-subsidy removal support 

The Federal government had earlier secured an $800 million world bank facility as a conditional cash transfer for the most vulnerable households across the country in the wake of the fuel subsidy removal.

President Tinubu had earlier stated the Federal government will be paying N8000 monthly to households to ameliorate the effect of the subsidy removal.

However, earlier this week the President reneged on the plan and promise a review of the policy.  




Comments 3

  1. Barinem lezor

    Politicians are playing politics with the people of Nigeria , the palliative you are talking about will only end in the hand of the same politicians and there cronies the poorest citizens of this country can never see any results from the government

  2. The states social register is corrupted. Must we go through the route of cash transfer. The states has never been sincere in.its dealings with economic actors. How did N3million grant to SMEs got reduced to 300k. Until when we have an open system where residents can freely register while the state do the verification, then there is no hope.

  3. Jiddah m.a Ajayi

    All this conditional cash transfers don’t add up to solving our bad/unpatriotic governance, must we apply Neoliberal economic actions that continuously pauperise our people,destroy our economy and add more to our pains and hopelessness?.
    The way we’re going i fear a mass reaction that will nip this democracy in the bud


    1. Warning: Undefined variable $post_id in /var/www/nairametrics/wp-content/themes/nairametrics/comments.php on line 134

      Warning: Undefined variable $post_id in /var/www/nairametrics/wp-content/themes/nairametrics/comments.php on line 134

      Leave a Reply

      Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *